Complicated Happiness
by ZombieJazz
Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbor. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighborhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy. Maybe happiness and family come with different definitions than she expected. Story 3 of series.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She put her hand out to keep Noah to the side while Elliot and Dickie maneuvered her sofa to get it through the door of her new condo.

She'd put off getting out of her one bedroom rental apartment as long as she could before it just reached the point of absurdity. Living with a two-year-old in her small place had become ridiculous. Though she knew getting me-time wasn't likely to happen again for another about 16 years, she was at least hoping the upgrade would mean occasionally having some of her own personal space. At least she'd get her own bedroom and more space to store his slew of toys.

She'd managed to talk Elliot into enlisting the help of Dickie and Lizzie with the promise of some extra pocket money for the teens. Munch had overheard the conversation and also volunteered his Saturday. She was starting to regret accepting that offer, as John brought up conspiracy theories upon seeing the boxes of Noah's new bedroom set that needed to be put together. She apparently had reason to be concerned about buying anything from the Swedes and anything containing the chemicals used in press together the wood in such "cheap" furniture. She wasn't sure she agreed with him on the cheap furniture part – or any other part of his rant. But he was good with Noah, and had been since the first time she'd brought him into the precinct. She never would've pegged John as a baby person but he'd been the first in the bullpen to greet the infant and had asked to hold him and babbled at him. Noah had seemed fascinated with him ever since.

They'd actually managed to make fairly quick work of the move so far. She'd made sure everything that could be in a box had been – and beyond that she really didn't have a lot of furniture. And, despite John's rant about her IKEA purchases, Elliot had seemed to feel they'd be able to screw the pieces of plywood together in short order once they got started on it.

She heard some movement behind her and glanced back from the door to see a man coming out of the next door condo. He was tall and fit looking – but in an almost too thin kind of way. He wore cords that were riding a little too low and sagging in the back – as he adjusted his messenger bag to lock the door she saw his shirt lift up slightly and could see the waist of plaid boxers. He wore a ratty looking cardigan and a faded Batman tshirt. She thought he looked just a little bit too hipster – especially for someone his age. She figured he was a few years her junior – but couldn't have been any younger than maybe 34.

He glanced up as he finished putting his keys away and gave her a small smile. He walked over. She thought he was just going to do the typical New Yorker and walk by on his way to the elevator. But he stopped and kind of awkwardly held up his hand.

"Hey," he said and smiled again.

It suddenly clicked that he reminded her of Leonard on the Big Bang Theory – only taller. Then felt silly that she watched the show enough that she actually knew that. This is what my life has become, she though, home watching sitcoms at 8 p.m. on a week night.

_A comic geek neighbour, this should be interesting. Hopefully he doesn't have Sheldon as a roommate - and hopefully he isn't a comic per._

She'd done a careful check on the community and the building before signing the lease. There'd been some rapes in the area over the past year but only one murder – and no sex offenders were showing up as living in the building, or any of the surrounding ones. And it had been near a park, transit, a library, pharmacy and a grocery store. It seemed like it would be an OK place to raise her son, at least for the next few years until they needed even more space – if she could afford that.

Raising the baby was costing more than she'd imagined, even with Kurt occasionally providing child support. She was still waiting for the paperwork to go through to have his wages garnished. He wasn't happy about it. He felt she was trying to put a blemish on his career and his record of integrity with his readers. She could really care less about what stories he was writing or where he was. The reality was if she wasn't trying to raise a child in New York City, she'd likely do her best to try to forget who Noah's father was. Kurt was clearly trying his damnedest to forget Noah existed.

"Hey," Olivia said, pushing Noah through the door a bit and towards the others.

"Umm, I'm Will," the guy said and stuck out his hand. "I think we're neighbours."

She cautiously took it. "I guess so." She didn't introduce herself.

He noticed. "I'm Will," he said again, in a voice that sounded like he was questioning if he'd managed to get that out before. She was starting to think he didn't really talk to women – or anyone – much.

"Hi, Will," she said.

"Umm, OK," he stumbled and fiddled a bit with the clip on his bag. "Ah, well, I'll let you get back to your move. I just wanted to say hello." He paused. "Welcome," he said in feigned enthusiasm and then just kind of shuffled around Dickie who was coming from the opposite direction with a dolly containing a pile of boxes. Elliot followed behind him, carrying one of her lamps and a duffle that she'd packed linens into. He glanced back to where Will was waiting for the elevator that they didn't have on the service setting. He was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, still fiddling with his bag, clearly aware he was being stared at.

"What was that?" Elliot nodded.

"I'm not sure," she said. "But he's apparently my new neighbour."

Elliot just grunted.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Wait, wait, can you hold the elevator, please?" She heard but she was already crouched down in front of her son trying to do up his zipper. A hand flew out and grabbed the door just as it was about to close.

Will got in and then seemed to take a moment to recognize her and then looked a little embarrassed.

"Oh, hey," he greeted.

She just nodded and went back to doing up Noah's zipper.

"Did you get moved in OK?" Will asked as the elevator made the five-floor ride down to the main lobby.

"Yeah, we did OK," she allowed.

He just nodded and stood quietly until the doors opened. He then positioned himself in front of them to keep them open as she guided Noah out by the hand and pulled the umbrella stroller behind her.

"Thanks," she said.

He just nodded again and then hurried forward to hold the door of the building open for her after she'd strapped Noah into the seat. She just nodded her thanks at him this time.

"Have a good day," he told her but then followed after her.

She glanced back at him – uncomfortable with him being that close behind her. He looked at his feet.

"Umm, sorry, I'm going to the subway," he offered.

She nodded again. _Figured._ That's where she was headed too.

He jogged a couple steps to catch up with her.

"I didn't catch your name the other day," he said.

She glanced at him again. He seemed harmless enough – but she'd learned over the years that a lot of people seemed one way but turned out to be another.

"Olivia," she offered, not wanting to be overly paranoid. She hated when she let her work creep too much into her daily life to create mistrust of people who really meant no harm to her.

"And?" He was pointing at her son in his stroller.

She shot him another look but gave, "Noah."

"Noah," her son agreed, smiling at the stranger. Olivia wasn't sure she was comfortable with that either.

He nodded. "Olivia and Noah. Good to meet you, again," he smiled. "What about your husband and other son?"

She raised an eyebrow at him but then realized he was talking about Elliot and Dickie, who he had seen in the hallway.

"I just had some friends helping me move," she said.

"Oh," he said.

They walked about half a block without him saying anything else.

"So are you new to the city?" He asked.

"No."

He nodded. "What neighbourhood did you move from?"

She looked at him again. He was too friendly to be from New York. "Chelsea. Have you lived in the city long?"

"Oh yeah," he said. "Basically my whole life. Well Staten Island."

_Ah, that explains it_, she thought.

"This is a pretty good neighbourhood," he offered. "I think you'll like it."

They got to the steps to the subway station and he picked up the footrest of the stroller and helped her carry Noah down. He then stood next to her on the platform.

"I guess we're both headed downtown," he said.

She sighed. "I guess so."

He rocked on the balls of his feet a bit.

"Did they get you your mailbox key yet? It took me almost a month to get mine out of the management office," he said, clearly attempting to keep the conversation moving forward.

She just nodded.

The train came and she maneuvered the stroller inside. She found a seat but Will still stood in front of them. She looked at him but decided to shift her attention to Noah.

"You OK in there?" she asked, pushing his toque up more off his eyes. He smiled and giggled at her, and pulled his toque back further down his head. She unzipped his diaper bag and pulled out a little Tupperware with some grapes in it and held it in front of Noah, who leaned forward and carefully picked one with his chubby fingers and pushed it into his mouth.

"Yum, grapes," Will in-toned and Noah smiled and giggled at him. "How old is he?"

"He's two - 28 months," she said without looking up. The announcement went that the next stop was her transfer. She went to stand and tried to shuffle by him a bit.

"Oh, this is my stop too," he said.

Now she really gave him a look. He was starting to feel like he was stalking her.

"Umm, I work at NYU," he offered. "I teach math."

_Great, so they really were going the same direction._

He followed her through the hustle and bustle of the transfer station to the other platform, again silently lifting the one end of the stroller for her. Noah didn't fuss about the unknown man invading his personal space and she did appreciate the help in navigating all the stairs and escalators and not having to wait for the elevator.

They stood waiting for the next train silently. She glanced at him a couple times. He teaches math at NYU? She thought. He might be geekier than she even was suspecting. She felt a little bad for him – or at least what she was thinking about him, which she expected most women did.

"You're a professor or you're a TA?" She finally asked, thinking that his clothes and demeanour seemed a little young – and that if he was a tenured professor at NYU, there were likely a rather significant amount of intelligence under his rumpled looking attire and awkwardness. But as she gazed at him she'd suddenly realized he was more likely still a TA and that she'd misjudged his age.

But he just gave her a smile like it was a question he got a lot.

"I'm a prof," he said.

"My mother was a professor," she heard it come out of her mouth before she could stop it, "at Columbia."

"Oh yeah?" He perked up at her making any sort of conversation. He'd recognized he'd been pulling teeth and that she didn't much want to talk to him. "She still there? What's her field?"

She shook her head. "Umm, no. She died a few years ago. She was a professor of Classical Literature."

"Oh, sorry to hear that," Will said. He could tell he was now gauging her age and likely determining her mother didn't die of old age.

They got onto the next train. Noah fussed, wanting to get out of his stroller and crawled on his knees in the seat next to her. She held on to him as he looked out the window – at the dark concrete walls whizzing by.

"I'm mostly game theory," he offered. "It's much less the study of overweight-20-somethings in their mother's basements playing video games than it sounds."

At least he had a sense of humour.

"It's complicated to explain and I don't want to bore you."

_Thank God for that_, she thought.

"What about you? You got this little guy in daycare near your work?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

She didn't add anymore.

"And where's that?" He asked. "I mean, what do you do?"

She decided to test the extent of his creep factor. Though she wasn't getting that vibe from him he wanted to put an end to any potential developments.

"I'm a cop," she offered.

He snorted.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her badge to show him. He gazed at it for a second. Noah grabbed at it.

"Mommy please offer," he told them both and seemed happy to look at the badge for about the millionth time. She let him.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "You just don't look like a cop."

Now she snorted at that comment.

"You're a detective, not vice then?" She nodded. "With what? Narcotics? Fraud? Homicide?"

"Sex crimes." She was looking at her small son again.

He just said, "Oh."

The automated system announced the next stop – 8th NYU.

"This is me," he said and maneuvered around her and the stroller.

"Have a good day," he said, "you too, Noah."

She nodded thanks. As the subway doors closed she watched him disappear into the crowd. She wondered if the chat would put an end to him chatting her up. She wasn't sure how she felt about that either way. He seemed nice enough. She just wasn't interested in having anyone nosing into her life – especially a nosey neighbour.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

It was a fairly quiet day at the office. They were both working on paperwork and there was the usual banter going around the room.

She was glad to have a more laidback day. As much as she hated doing piles of paperwork, after a weekend spent moving and unpacking boxes while also trying to entertain Noah and keep him from being too much under foot, she was grateful to just get to sit down for eight hours.

Elliot had wandered off to find something for lunch – turning up his nose at whatever leftovers Kathy had packed him. She sometimes wondered if his wife knew he was probably as bad as the kids about eating the brown-bagged sandwiches. He'd snack on the apple and the granola bar in there during the day – but was far more likely to grab a donut and coffee or hot dog or steak sandwich and a Coke rather than eating the soggy bread, mustard and ham that seemed to be a lunch staple out of their house. It was amazing that he'd managed to eat the way he did, work the job and the hours he did and still manage to keep up his physique. She figured that with him in his mid-forties now, it was only a matter of time before his metabolism really did have something to say about it.

She looked at her version of lunch. Lazy woman's tabouleh special. That morning she'd rummaged through what she'd salvage from her previous kitchen and dumped a half can of lentils into a Tupperware container with a screw-on cap. She added a handful of baby tomatoes, ripped up some baby spinach, a spoonful of crumbled feta and a squirt of whatever vinaigrette salad dressing she had in the fridge and had shaken it up. Ta-Dah. Something almost edible.

She dug around her desk drawer and found a fork. She stared at it for a moment. It was clearly used – she hoped only by her last week. It didn't look that gross. So rather than walk over to the kitchenette to wash it or find a clean one, she just screwed off the top of her meal and dug in.

She surfed a little while she ate. Most of the bullpen was either out on a case or taking some sort of lunch break at the moment. It was quiet. She needed a break from the monotony of filling in forms.

She wasn't quite sure why she decided to go snooping on her new neighbour. Call it being a detective – or being a mother, or being a woman. Just something about their meetings so far had stuck with her. She wanted to glean a bit more about what kind of person she was going to be dealing with – because she was definitely getting the impression that she was going to have to be more than a little rude if she wanted to get his aww-shucks self to just let her go about her life in peace and quiet.

She had to click around the NYU site for a while before making it onto the Courant Institute's page and the math department. It took some more clicking around the faculty pages before she located him. William was far to common of name, and apparently popular among the math lot. But there he was William McTeague.

He looked younger in his picture than he did now. A baby really. But she suspected they didn't update the photos that often – and his biography and resume indicated he'd been at NYU for four years.

"Will McTeague is an associate professor at the Courant Institute, New York University's Department of Mathematics," the bio said.

"Will got his Bachelor of Science in Physics from MIT before completing his PhD in Applied Mathematics at Harvard University, where taught for three years as an adjunct professor before joining the Courant Institute in 2004 in a tenure-track position.

"His research interests focus on the theory and applications of algorithms and logic-based applications, especially for networks, auctions, electronic commerce and other game-theoretics. He also has expertise in machine learning, data privacy and cryptology.

"He has published numerous articles and has also served as a contributing author for five textbooks, his most recent being, the Essentials of Game Theory, which he co-authored with Courant colleague, Patrick Bowens.

"His research has seen him honoured with the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Mathematical Programming Society's Fulbright Prize for Young Investigators, and the Sharpe Lectureship in Game Theory. In 2003, Will was on Technology Review's list of 35 remarkable innovators under 35. For his teaching, Will has previously received the Applied Science's Distinguished Teacher Award and the Executive Council's Excellence in Teaching Award at NYU.

"Will is thrilled to be back in his home city and teaching the bright young minds at NYU," the bio added. "He offers, on a rotating basis, some of the Courant's most popular electives, including game theory, machine learning and gamification. But when he isn't crunching the numbers in the classroom or lab, he is playing and designing strategic games, including (local indie-cult classic) Killer Kittens in a Blender, and hanging out around the city's game cafés and comic shops.

"An avid sports fan, Will looks forward to playing some moneyball with his classes and arguing and applying the stats of the Yankees, Knicks and Rangers (and maybe the Giants). He may even admit to some of his own stats and figures from his less than spectacular athletic achievements (swimming, running and being badly defeated by his older brothers in shinny hockey) - for the sake of science, of course."

She smiled at some of it. It was clear to her that he'd written at least some of it; it sounded like him even just based on the conversation she'd had with him that morning. She had to admit, though, even with her brief stint in Computer Crimes, most of what he was saying he researched was whizzing over her head.

Elliot was back. He glanced at her screen as he headed back around to his desk.

"Did something come in while I was out?" He asked.

"Nah," she said, still looking at the screen. She was scrolling through the list of courses he said he taught: Machine Learning, Datamining and Statistical Pattern Recognition; Models – Forecasting the Movement of People, Firms and Government; Game Theory in a Connected World; Gamification – Social Impact Challenges; Introduction to Logic; Algorithm Design I; and, Calculus I. "It's just that guy from the hall on Saturday – my new neighbour."

El grunted. He'd brought back a container of Chinese. It smelled good. "He creeping you out?"

"No, I don't think so," she said. "We ended up walking to the subway this morning." Elliot raised any eyebrow at her, which she ignored. "He's a prof at NYU."

"Oh yeah?" He shoved some more food into his mouth with the chop sticks and sucked up the noodles that missed, hanging almost back down to the container.

"Attractive," Liv remarked at him.

He winked. "I know, Kathy's a lucky women. So what's he teach?"

"Ahh, apparently calculus, algorithms, logics … a bunch of other math stuff that I don't understand."

Elliot made a snoring sound and lulled his head back.

"Looks like he's actually highly regarded in his field," she commented, "at least according to the powers that be at NYU."

"Couldn't tell that on Saturday," El said. "I'm surprised he can form words in front of a lecture hall. He seemed more like the pimpled-faced 14-year-old trying to talk to the pretty girl and getting shot down."

"Ooh, who'd Liv shoot down?" Munch asked also returning to his desk from being out talking to a witness with Fin.

"Creepy neighbour," he told him.

"El," she snapped. "He's not that creepy. I think he's just shy."

"You need us to go over there and lay down the law for this guy," Fin suggested.

"Guys, com'on," she groaned. "I can take care of myself – especially against the scrawny comic-book math geek."

"Yeah, you say that now, but just wait until he gets very angry," Munch in-toned in his best Lou Ferrigno voice, "and goes all Incredible Hulk on your ass."

"Or, umm, that dude from X-Men," Fin suggested.

"Wolverine," Elliot snapped his fingers.

"Nah, the bad one," Fin said, "in the movie. All purple and in tights."

"Purple because he never gets laid," El suggested.

"Magnet Man," Fin said.

"Magneto," Munch said.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "I don't think it's Will that you guys should be making fun of. Listen to yourselves."

"Super heroes do always get the girl," Fin said. "Maybe he should try a cape? Tights? That your thing Liv?"

"Yeah, my total fantasy. I have lots of time to think about it too with work and a two-year-old at home."

"But what if he was Superman?" Elliot suggested.

"Batman?" Added Fin.

Elliot snapped again, and smiled, "Batman!" By his reaction she knew he remembered Will had on a Batman shirt on Saturday.

She shook her head. "I'm leaving."

She started to walk out front to get a coffee, still hearing the guys joke about which caped crusader had the best chance of winning the girl, though apparently having to beat out each other to have the opportunity in the first place.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Today's special – four tomatoes for a $1," the shop owner tried to up-sell her.

She just shook her head. "Not today."

"Aww, com'on," the man faked whined. "It is a great deal."

"I only need one," she said.

"How about I spot you the difference – and I'll even let you keep a second tomato," she heard behind her and looked.

Will smiled and reached around her, taking a bag from the shop owner and placing two tomatoes in it, a loaf of bread and eggs. He tucked a carton of orange juice under his arm, handed her a second tomato and handed the cashier $12.

"The big spender's tomatoes are on me, Mr. Huang," he commented.

The small Asian man just took the money and then started to bag her shopping – the tomatoes, a bag of mixed greens, some pears and a box of Cheerios.

She heard Will chatting at Noah as she paid.

"You've got to be nice to Mr. Huang," he said as they walked out the door. "He does handle your produce."

She allowed a small smile. "I really don't need two tomatoes."

"Oh, who doesn't need tomatoes?" He teased. "You can use them in anything. Eggs, sandwiches, salads, pasta. Hot, cold. Grilled, fried, baked, boiled. Simmered? Stir fried? Pickled? The possibilities are endless."

"Sounds like I should give you that extra tomato back," she said.

"And rob your taste buds of all those options? I don't think so." He bent down and looked at Noah. "You like tomatoes, right Noah?"

Noah stuck out his tongue – the newest form of 'no' that he'd learned from some other kid at daycare.

"I knew it," he told her. "He's glad that I invested those twenty-five cents into his meal plan."

They walked in silence for a moment.

She had managed to get through the rest of the first week without seeing him again – until now as she walked home on Friday night. She had been kind of relieved. She had initially thought that their schedules and routes might be a little too similar and they'd be seeing each other all the time. But as the week went on and she saw no trace of him and she had become more curious about what his schedule was. She guessed as a professor, he didn't always have to go into campus and likely had days where he didn't have classes or office hours – or if he did they were in the afternoons or evenings. He likely didn't have to do all his research or writing on campus either, she rationalized. Maybe he spent a lot of time at home with his games and comics and math figurings?

"The week treat you OK?" He asked. "Get to see you on Monday morning and Friday night," he added. "Book-ends." He held up his hands in a squeezing motion.

_The guy was kind of weirdly quirky_, she thought again.

"Umm, yeah, it was OK," she said. She tucked her hair behind her hair. She cursed herself for doing it. It was one of her feminine tells but she suspected he hadn't even noticed.

"That's likely good, right?" He asked. "For the city, I mean? If your week went OK?"

She smiled a bit. "Yeah, I suppose so."

Noah threw one of his mittens onto the ground and Will bent over and picked it up for him. Then wiggled it back onto the little boy's hand as she brought the stroller to a stop.

"Ah, thanks," she said.

He just nodded but then clearly felt self-conscious about it and like he over-stepped some sort of boundary. "I've got a boat-load of nieces and nephews," he told her. "I've done it all before."

"Mommy I walk," Noah told her as the stroller was at the stop and flailed to get out. She helped him, placing his one hand on the stroller for support and so she could keep track of him.

She felt like Will was telling her way too much about his life – and then of course she'd Google stalked him so she knew even more than he'd actually vocally provided. She was starting to feel a little guilty about it.

"What about you?" She asked, pulling her mind away from it. "Did you have an OK week?"

"Oh yeah, super exciting," he smiled at her. "Returned mid-terms last week – got hundreds of kids thinking they're fucked …" he winced and put his hand over his mouth for a second, glancing at Noah, who hadn't seemed to notice. "Sorry .. screwed this week. Get to play counselor and wet-maid, whipping away the tears. You wouldn't believe how many parents call in complaining too."

She looked at him. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah. But I've got two freshman classes I'm teaching this term. A lot of these kids haven't really flown the nest yet – and I guess with the Bank of Mom and Dad going bankrupt, they feel like they've got to place the blame somewhere. Some how that seems to end up on me more than some of these kids."

She shook her head. "I would've died if my mother ever did that while I was in college."

"I know, right?" He said a little too enthusiastically. But then allowed, "But I actually did see it as a student too. But more with the donor kids. These days, it seems like it doesn't matter. I try to understand when it's the parents of the freshmen but it's a little ridiculous when it's my seniors – or my grad students."

He held the door open for at the building again and as they waited for the elevator asked, "So you guys got big plans for the weekend? Do you even get weekends off?"

She glanced at him. He was looking at her a little too expectantly. It made her uncomfortable.

"Umm, yeah, right now I have this weekend off. But I don't really know what we're doing. I still have a lot of unpacking and organizing to get done up there. Finish putting some things together, hang up pictures."

He nodded, as they got on the elevator.

"Well, if you ever need help or something – I'm actually handier than I look. I'm pretty good at nailing things."

She kind of gaped at him. He clearly hadn't realized what he'd said. She stifled a laugh.

He looked at her – clearly processing and got an 'oh shit' look. "Like with a hammer – to a wall," he added the unneeded clarification.

She nodded as they got off the elevator. "Yeah, got it, you're good at nailing things to the wall."

Her apartment was the first one after the elevator and she already had her key out.

"But, seriously, if you need a hand …" he offered.

She nodded as she got the open the door. "I'll keep it in mind."

She was already closing the door. "Thanks for the tomatoes."

"Umm, yeah, anytime …" he trailed out. She swore she heard him mumble, "Stupid, stupid, stupid" as she bolted the door.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd spent most of Saturday getting the last of her touches around the apartment done as best she could. She was anxious to get the worst of it out of the way and knew she could work at the little things over time.

She'd already decided she didn't want to spend Sunday cooped up in the place. It was just after 9 a.m. but she already had herself and Noah dressed and was working on finishing up throwing the day's necessities into a bag so they could go out and explore the community a bit more. Hell, it might be early for the rest of the city on a Sunday but for her anything after 5 a.m. was sleeping in anymore and she wasn't going to just sit around for it to be a more acceptable hour. She'd already puttered around for almost 4 hours waiting for it to reach 9, which she felt was acceptable enough.

The knock on the door startled her a bit. She peaked through the hole and saw Will standing there. He looked like he was in work-out clothes – runners pants, a zip-up hoodie and a Yankees cap. She thought about ignoring it but suspected he'd likely heard her move to the door.

She opened it.

"Hey," he smiled.

"Hey?" She said questioningly.

"Umm, I was going out. I wondered if you guys wanted to come. I could show you some of the hot spots in the community."

She suspected he meant literal hotspots – for WiFi – and not anything particularly useful for their lifestyle.

She sighed at him. She decided then and there to put an end to this. Knocking on her door at 9 a.m. on a Sunday had crossed the creepy line.

"Look, Will, I'm not sure what you're shooting at here, but I'm not interested."

She saw his eyes go kind of confused and then questioning.

"I'm not interested in a relationship right now – especially with a neighbour," she clarified for him.

"Great," he said almost too instantaneously.

"Great?" She repeated back to him.

"Yeah, great. I'm not looking for a relationship either," he said. "Especially with a neighbour," he added for good measure.

She looked at him again. This guy was just weird.

"You just want to go out and see the hot spots – in the morning, on a Sunday – with a single woman and her infant son?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"You realize that's not really normal?" She told him.

He looked at her. His face was kind of softening and starting to look appalled by what she might be implying. "Why not?"

"In my job, women who go to see the hot spots with some unknown man end up in a gutter – beat up, raped or worse. You can't just be randomly asking women out like this – it comes across as kind of weird."

He gaped at her. "Oh, com'on Olivia," he said, shook his head. "You're kidding right?" She didn't say anything. He scratched his head, pushing up his cap. "OK, wow. Well, I just thought you were new to the community – we've chatted a couple times. I thought we'd kind of connected a bit. And, if you hadn't noticed yet, the insulation in this building isn't exactly sound proof – I could hear you up and pushing that crap around against the wall." He pointed kind of through her door. "I thought since I was going out to get a coffee, you might want to go for a walk too. I was trying to be friendly – God knows people around here aren't exactly going to be reaching out and offering you that very often. If that's what you want – that's fine. I thought maybe you might want something a bit more than that from the community since you've got a kid. That's all. I wasn't looking for a relationship – and I certainly wasn't looking to rape you. Christ."

He moved towards the elevator and pushed the button.

She felt like a jackass now.

She'd told herself with the move that it was a bit of a new start. That she'd make a greater effort to integrate herself into the community – for Noah's sake. Join some Mommy and Me groups or something. Take him out and about more. Just try to be more friendly and less untrusting – to make sure her son got as normal of life as possible and wasn't too affected by all her baggage from work.

Here some guy, who actually did seem nice enough if a little quirky, was offering her a little bit of adult chit-chat with someone who wasn't a co-worker and offering to try to help her navigate the community, and she basically accused him of being while on the road to becoming a rapist.

She felt stupid. She should know better – her job was to get to the heart of people after all.

"Wait," she sighed, looking out the door. The elevator hadn't come yet. She'd only been there a week and was already realizing that elevator service sucked. If she wasn't trucking Noah around, she'd be taking the stairs. "I could use a coffee, if you still don't mind us coming along."

He glanced at her. His eyes betrayed his upset at what had happened but he nodded. "Sure."

"I'll just be a minute."

She tossed the last few things in the bag and grabbed Noah from where he had been sitting on the living room floor. Balancing him on her hip, she dragged the rest of the gear out behind her and locked the door before meeting him at the elevator.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

He had taken her to a nice little coffee spot that she could see herself going back to. The latte she had was good and the gigantic cranberry-lemon muffin had left her wanting more, though she had restrained herself enough to share it with Noah.

They'd wandered a bit. They'd really just made small talk. He told her he'd been living there about three years now. He'd moved home when he first came back to the city but between wanting his own space and the hassle of commuting from the Island, he'd started to look in Manhattan and even though there was still the subway ride and the transfer to get to work, it was faster and he liked the neighbourhood.

He'd pointed things out here and there as they walked. A bakery that he said had really great bread. A vegan restaurant that would make carnivores drool with jealousy. A gym that had spin classes – but $32 a pop. He'd pointed down a street that he said had a comic shop and he was friends with the owner. They'd gone into a small bookshop that he'd said was good. She browsed a bit and pulled some picture books off the shelf to look at with Noah while he chatted with the clerk, who he seemed to know.

He seemed genuinely friendlier with people than she would've expected and not nearly as shy. Though he was awkward – sometimes not making eye contact and fidgeting, and some of the things that came out of mouth ranged from what she thought was likely sarcastic (though she felt she was sometimes missing the reference) to downright quirky, where she again thought she was likely also missing the reference.

They'd eventually ended up in the park and now sat on the grass of the small ridge, looking at the river and watching dog-walkers and joggers go by along the boardwalk. Noah was sleeping in his stroller. He'd run around for a little while when they'd go there. Will had played with him – holding out his hands to encourage him to get to him and snipping him around when he did. Noah thought it was hilarious and would chase after him – reaching out to tag Will's hand and then get scooped into the air.

She wasn't used to other people playing or interacting with her son. But Noah seemed to be enjoying it and she kind of sadly figured it was something the boy had been wanting and needing.

Will was pulling at the grass at his feet, his knees pulled up in front of him. She again thought he looked young the way he was sitting and acting – crouched over and quiet. She wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting in silence.

"So is this what your weekends usually look like?" She finally asked, sensing he'd be more comfortable if there was some type of conversation happening.

He shrugged and adjusted his legs, leaning back onto his hands. "I guess so. Depends on work. I usually go for a run on Sunday mornings, though. Or a swim – the pool there," he pointed down the park, "it's two bucks. But, yeah, I wander. Book store, coffee, comic shop, friends for brunch. That kind of thing. I usually go back to the Island to see my family at least one weekend a month. Sometimes two."

"Does all your family still live there?"

He nodded. "Yeah. My parents. Two older brothers – their wives and kids. All on the same block."

"Wow," she said.

He smirked and dropped his eyes a bit. "Yeah. So very Staten Island." It was quiet again for a moment. "What about you? Siblings? You mentioned your mom's passed but your dad?"

She shook her head feeling a little awkward. "Ah, no. It was just me and mom."

He just nodded. She was sure he felt a little awkward by her response but it was a casual question. She didn't fault him. It wouldn't have been much of a big deal for a normal person from a normal family. But she didn't really feel like she had ever fit that description.

"What about Noah's dad?" He nodded towards her sleeping son.

She just shook her head again and didn't give any explanation. He went back to pulling at the grass.

"I'm really curious about how old you are?" She asked, meeting his eyes. He gave her a questioning look. "You seem …" she decided to change her language. "… You look so young – and I kind of looked at your profile on the university's website. It seems like you've accomplished a lot already in your career."

He snorted. "I'm 36 – and the write-up makes my 'career' sound more spectacular than it is. What about you? You're a bit harder to Google stalk than me, I think."

"You tried?" She raised an eyebrow.

He smiled. "Maybe."

She laughed a bit. "What'd you find?"

"Well when all I had was detective Olivia NYPD as a starting point – not much," he said and paused. "I found a couple articles where I guess you'd commented to the media on some cases. That you got a commendation a few years back."

She just nodded. She wasn't sure how she felt about him Googling her but was also glad she didn't have much of a footprint online. And, she really couldn't say much anyways – she'd looked him up too.

"You don't like talking about yourself much, do you?" He said. "Or just talking in general?"

She smiled and looked down and rocked Noah's stroller a bit with her hand. "I guess not."

He nodded. "That's OK. Despite my rambling at you, I actually am not a big talker either. Silence just makes that getting-to-know-you period kind of prolonged."

"Sitting on the grass is kind of cold," she commented.

"Yeah, you want to start walking back?" He was already standing and offered her a hand to help her up. She wasn't used to a man treating her like that – but she took it. He wiped off his rear and she did the same.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. She'd been surprised that it hadn't gone off yet that day and that she'd also resisted the urge to look at it. But she was almost more surprised to see that it was push 1:30 p.m. She hadn't realized they'd been out that long. No wonder Noah had sleeping – it was nearing his nap time anyways.

"It's almost 1:30," she told him.

He nodded. "Yeah. My stomach clock had gone off a while ago."

"You should've said something," she commented as they started to walk down the boardwalk.

He shrugged. "You guys seemed OK. There's a good pizza place on the way home, if you want a slice."

She shook her head. "I don't really eat pizza."

"I hope that's not a diet thing," he said. She caught his eyes again. "You don't need to be dieting."

She made no comment but she kind of disagreed. She certainly didn't think she was fat but she'd put on 54 lbs while she'd been pregnant with Noah and now two years later she was still working at taking it all back off. The stubborn last 15 just wasn't budging and she was slowly starting to accept that along with all the other changes motherhood had brought to her life and body – those 15 lbs were likely going to stay.

"What about soup?" He said. "Do you do that?"

She smiled softly. "Yeah, I guess I could manage some soup."

"Good. I know a spot."

They walked quietly again. Noah had been sleeping for about 30 minutes at that point she figured and she knew it wouldn't be that much longer before he was awake and wanting to play again. He also likely needed to at least have his diaper checked - if not changed. She really hoped to have him toilette trained by now but it hadn't happened. The doctor had told her with boys, it could be after his third birthday before he really got the hang of it and showed interest on his own. She hoped that wasn't true. They'd made some progress. He'd at least sit on the potty now and some times if she asked him directly he'd agree he needed to pee. But they hadn't reached the point he'd tell her himself yet – or that there was any sort of consistency in the progress they had made.

"Is it far? Noah's likely going to need to be changed when he wakes up."

"Umm…about half mile, 10 minutes? We can get back onto the city streets, if you want, though, out of the park."

She nodded and they turned away from the river and back towards the concrete and bustle of the city. At least it was fairly quiet, though. She'd specifically picked this neighbourhood because it felt a bit more suburban than other parts of the city – but was still on Manhattan. It was taking some adjusting too. Not that she'd been around much to start that adjustment yet.

"So you didn't tell me how old you are?" He said kind of out of nowhere.

She laughed. "Does it matter?"

"Not really, but you'd asked me."

"Older than you."

"How much older than me?"

"Not old enough that it matters but not young enough that I'm going to say."

"That sounds like someone had a 40th birthday recently to me," he teased.

"Not quite – but it's coming up."

He nodded. "You'll be happy to know that I've got the big 3-7 hurdle coming up in a few months too."

"Yeah, that one's really terrifying," she groaned at him.

"I think most of the numbers after 30 are. Then after 35 …"

"Thirty-five sounds like forever ago to me. I'm not sure I can remember 30," she said.

"Have you been with the NYPD for a while?" He asked.

She nodded. "Yeah – since my 20s. All I've done."

"And the Special Victims Unit?" He had done his research.

"Coming up on ten years – since I was 30." She felt herself shake herself a bit in disbelief at that. It was hard to believe it'd been that long. Most detectives got transferred out of there after about five years max – if not more like two or three. Here she still was ten years later.

"Maybe that's why 30 seems so long ago," he commented. "It must be a hard job. Makes me feel bad about whining about having to deal with whiney university kids."

"It's not so bad," she said. "It's rewarding – even though it can be challenging. It's my life."

"Well, it's not your life," he said. She shot him a look and he sensed she was about to tell him off. "I mean, you have Noah?"

She sighed. "Yeah."

It was true. She had Noah. There wasn't a day that went by that she was grateful to have him. He'd changed her life. He'd grounded her more – and really gave her something to live for. Something to go home to and something to keep on going for. He made her feel less alone and more complete. Watching him grow up brought her so much joy. He made her smile and laugh in ways that she hadn't known were possible anymore. But having a baby wasn't without it's challenges and had brought its own emotional toils in more ways than one. Being a mother affected her work, affected her decisions, affected how she held herself together on cases – her judgment. She sometimes felt guilty about that. Being his mother was something that she was still adjusting to, as much as she loved it, it was something that brought her mixed emotions as well.

"Why math?" She changed the subject.

He smiled. "That's way more politically correct then me asking, 'Why sex crimes?'"

"You don't really want to know the answer to that question anyways," she said, cursing herself for saying it aloud.

"Umm, I guess, math because I was good at it. I don't think there was deep reasoning behind it. I started out in physics but some of it was just too theoretical for me. I liked that everyday math was something that could be applied – could make sense of the real world, rather than theorizing about the universe. It was just too abstract. I needed something more concrete at the time, I guess."

"Why?"

He looked at her. "Why what?"

"Did you need something more concrete? I'm not a scientist but the switch from physics to math, seems kind of big."

"It's not as big as you'd think," he said. "It's all numbers, all equations. I just apply them in a different way now."

She nodded. "You'd just said that you needed something more concrete at the time, I thought you meant something else. Something drove the switch?"

He laughed. "There's your detective training clicking in, huh? Listening to my words a little too closely. I'll have to remember to pick my words carefully around you."

He glanced at her. It seemed like she was still waiting for answer.

"That question, Detective Olivia, is about as politically correct as my demanding to know why on Earth you'd go into working sex crime cases? And, I don't think you want to answer that one."

"The victims," she stated matter-of-factly. "I went into it to help the victims. They deserve it. They need it – I think more than most other victims of crime. What happens to these people is unimaginable – and, I've seen first hand the impact these crimes have on the victims and their families." _Because my mother was raped – because I'm the child of that rape_, but she let that addition stay in her head.

He nodded. It seemed like a practiced answer, but it was one that made sense to him. He wasn't going to push it further, though, he couldn't imagine ever stepping forward to do her job. But he couldn't imagine ever running into a burning building either and its something his father had done for his whole career and his brothers did now.

His choice to go into academics and not pursue the family legacy was something that he wasn't sure his family would ever truly understand. Like no matter how much work he did, credit he received or awards he had, it would never quite be good enough in their eyes. It would never be the same as risking his life or saving another life. Maybe they would've accepted his decision more if it was an MD and not a PhD attached to his name.

"Is that enough to get an answer to my question?" She asked, kind of intrigued.

"Umm," he pushed his cap up and down on his head again. She wasn't sure he was going to say anything. She could almost see the gears processing in his head. He looked at her but seemed to be looking at something off behind her.

"My wife died," he said. She felt her breath catch a little and her heart sink. She wished she hadn't pushed it. She thought they were half-ways joking around – that his answer would be more along the lines of he wanted to design board games or work with robots or a manage comic shop or something and he thought number crunching would come in more handy than the laws of gravity and string theory.

"Umm, Tessa died in the 9/11 attacks," he said softly. She felt worse but didn't know what to say. "I'd just started my adjunct job. I was still figuring out where me and my research fit into everything – where I was going to go with it – teaching, private sector, bureaucracy, you know ... But then …. I just … needed … something more based in reality, more concrete."

He sighed and looked at her. "Umm, I do kind of want to go for my run. Do you know where we are? Will you be OK getting back to the building?"

She nodded. "Yeah, we'll be fine." He put his cap on backwards and gave her a thin smile. "Will, I'm sorry …"

He cut her off. "… don't worry about it." He ran off faster than what she would've called a Sunday jog.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd been stewing about the weekend for two days. She hadn't seen Will since he'd literally run off. Though she was fairly sure she'd heard him enter his condo hours later – into the evening.

She felt horrible about what had happened. She felt she hadn't really given him a chance – she'd passed judgment on him, on his intentions, on the type of person he must be – without even taking the time to get to know him. And, he had tried so hard to extend some kindness and friendship to her and her son. Not only had she pushed him away, she'd forced him to bare his soul in the process and than practically stomped on it.

_How fucked up can I actually be?_ She thought, cursing at herself. _Fuck._

She had managed to get home at a reasonable time – and had actually made dinner. She had rice in the cooker. _Almost ready._

She had also managed to work up the courage to go and knock on his door. She felt a little silly about – like she was working really hard to be friends with a man she wasn't even entirely sure what she felt about. She wasn't used to making friends at this point in her life – or putting much effort into trying. Work was where her colleagues where, where here life is. Outside of Noah, she didn't put much effort into other people anymore. But she'd really stuck her foot in it with Will and she felt he deserved an apology.

She let Noah toddle up around her, holding onto his hand as he moved around her. It was taking him so long to answer the door she was starting to think he wasn't home. But she finally heard the deadbolt click and he opened the door a crack and leaned his arm against the jam, keeping it partially closed, almost like he was protecting himself.

"Hi," he nodded at her.

She gave him a small smile. "Will, I just really wanted to apologize about Sunday. I know people who died in the Towers too and their families and I just can't imagine what it would be like to …"

He shook his head looking at the ground. He spotted Noah, who peaked in and gave him a toothy grin. It made him smile a little. "Look, Olivia, don't worry about it. I'm sorry I left you and Noah just standing there."

"We were fine," she assured him. "I was just hoping that maybe we could kind of start again. I kind of feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I actually managed to cook a meal tonight and if you haven't eaten yet, I was wondering if you might want to join us?"

He sighed. He was still looking at the ground. "What'd you make?" He finally asked.

"Chicken." She could tell that wasn't really winning him over. "Rice. Salad."

She heard him exhale but she was still just looking at the top of his head. "Yeah, OK," he said softly. He reached out and grabbed his keys off the nearby kitchen counter and locking the door, followed her next door.

Her apartment smelled good on re-entering it. She guided Noah to the living room and let go of his hand. She could see Will looking around the space. She was pleased that she'd managed to have most of her things unpacked and that it didn't look too much like a toddler tornado had gone through it yet.

"Do you drink wine?" She asked. "I've got a bottle open."

"Sure. Sounds nice."

She poured him a glass and handed it to him.

"It will just be a couple more minutes," she told him. "I'm just waiting for the rice timer to go off."

He nodded. "It smells good."

She allowed a small smile. She was sure he was being polite.

She noticed that he was more dressed up than she'd seen him before. Still in jeans but wearing a white button-down shirt, the sleeved rolled up to his elbows and a tie with what looked like Barrel-Full of Monkeys on it, pulled loose around his neck.

"Mommy," Noah called from the couch, where he was hopping and waving a book at her. "Story."

She walked over and took him off the cushion before he fell. "After dinner, sweetie."

"Story," he demanded again and stomped his foot.

"Sorry," she looked at Will.

"No problem," he assured her. "I told you – I've done it and seen it all before. Boat-load of nieces and nephews."

He walked closer to Noah and crouched down. "Hey, bud, what you got there?" Noah held up the tattered Robert Munsch for him. "Mortimer? Hey, Noah, I'll have you know, that I am an EXPERT at reading that story."

"Story," Noah insisted and shoved it into his chest.

"I can read it to him while you finish up," he offered.

She shrugged. She wasn't sure the arrangement would work – but what the hell.

Will lowered himself further onto the floor and sat cross-legged. Noah stood next to him, looking over his shoulder a little at the book, holding onto his arm slightly.

"More-im-er," Noah said.

Will nodded. "Mortimer," and pointed to the title on the front of the book.

Liv listened for a moment and then headed back to the kitchen as Noah seemed engrossed for the time being. She pulled some plates and utensils from the cupboards and drawer and went over to set the table.

"This kid is driving me crazy," she heard Will in-tone in a crazy voice. He also went "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP," with dedicated enthusiasm as each character went up the stairs. Noah was completely enthralled – giggling at Will's version of the story, which was clearly much better than her's. She was most surprised when he first reached the part where he said, "'And Mortimer sang'," and actually sang, "'Clang, clang, rattle, bing, bang, going to make my noise all day. Clang, clang, rattle, bing, BANG, going to make my noise all day.'" Noah was in hysterics about it and had set himself in Will's lap.

She smiled. It was so strange to see her child interacting with a man. He had occasional interaction with some of the guys at work but that was infrequent – maybe a couple times a month and only lasting a few minutes at a time. Everyone else in his life was women – the ladies at the daycare and his babysitter; and, the few friends that still found the time to interact with her now that she was a single mom and not a single woman.

She had some how managed not to cast a wide array of even female friends who had married or had children to understand what she was going through. She supposed she had tended towards other workoholics who had given up their fertile years for some imagined greater purpose.

Dinner was ready but she waited until Will was done before telling them. He had scooped her son up and strapped him into his high chair.

"This looks great," Will told her as he took a seat and looked at his plate. She'd simmered the chicken with a bit of pesto and some button mushrooms and baby tomatoes. She'd also already put some of the fragrant rice on his plate for him.

"Tomatoes?" He commented, as she cut up some of the chicken on her plate and transferred it to a small plastic plate with cartoon-looking police cars on it that she put in front of Noah.

"Well, I'm told there are endless possibilities with tomatoes," she said. He smiled. "They're in the salad too," she handed him the large serving bowl and he put some on his plate. He passed it back to her so she could take some.

"Do you want some salad, Noah?" She asked.

"No," the boy shrieked putting up his hands in disgust at the idea.

She sighed. "How about some of the tomatoes or cucumbers?" She offered. "Olives?"

"Cumbers," Noah agreed.

She started fishing some of the slices out with her fingers. She glanced at Will. "Sorry, we aren't very high class around here. I promise I washed my hands."

"It's OK. I'm not a very high class guy."

She put a couple olives and tomatoes on Noah's plate too even though he tried to push them away. She knew he'd eventually eat the olives, though likely boycott the baby tomatoes. "Too 'quirty," was his usual assessment of them, closely followed by "Uck."

"This really is good," Will told her again as she finally started her meal. He was already about halfway done his.

He's either hungry or eating quickly to get the hell out of the chaos that was her apartment, she thought.

"I don't get a home-cooked meal often – not unless I head over to my mom's."

"Yeah, we don't really do sit-down dinners that often either," she said.

"A lot of take-out with your hours?" He asked. The small talk had begun.

She just nodded. "I freeze things when I do cook too. Keep it quick and easy. We do a lot of salads and raw veggies and fruit and chicken breasts, don't we Noah?"

"Cheer-os." She wasn't sure if he was adding that to the list or demanding it as an additional side dish with his dinner.

"Cheerios are very good too," Will humoured him. "Lower your cholesterol. I bet that's good for your mommy."

She smiled and focused on eating her food for a few minutes.

"You get to care for your nieces and nephews a lot then?" She asked. "You were good with him in there."

"Mmm," he nodded. His mouth was full. "Not as much now as before," he said after he swallowed. "I was pretty involved the year I was home. Still do some babysitting some times but with the family all right there, I'm not in huge demand. I have some of them over here sometimes. Give them a weekend in the city and give their parents a break."

"How many of them are there?" She asked.

"Eight," he nodded, putting another forkful in his mouth.

"'Ine!" Noah added.

They both smiled. She reached out and rubbed his arm. They'd been practicing numbers for a while. She wasn't sure any of it had really sunk in – at least beyond him going 'one, two, three' in sing-song.

"Umm, yeah, my oldest brother has five. They're all basically in their teens now, though. I was still in high school and around to do the babysit, play with the kids thing when his oldest were little."

"Wow. Big age gap?"

"A bit, I guess. They're in their 40s. Tom and Karen just got started kind of young," he said. "Rob, my other brother, he has three. They're littler. His youngest is not much older than Noah, actually, just turned three a few weeks back."

She nodded.

"It must be nice to have everyone kind of all in one place and able to help out," she said.

"Yeah, I guess," he allowed. "It is what it is."

She had kind of got the impression that he was the black sheep in his family. She wondered if it was just his personality and his interests or if it just had evolved in to that after his tragedy and how he'd dealt with it.

She phone went off and started buzzing around on the kitchen counter.

"Phone," Noah declared pointing to where it was dancing.

She stood from the table and looked at the incoming call. It was work.

"I've got to take this," she said and disappeared back down the hallway that he knew from his apartment led to the bedrooms and washroom. He'd already gauged that their layouts were exactly the same.

He occupied himself with eating his meal and teasing Noah with silly faces until she came back.

She sighed a bit. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've got to head out."

He nodded and put down his fork. He'd wondered how her schedule worked and how she balanced that with being a mother. He was getting a peak at it.

"What will you do with Noah?" he asked, nodding towards the little boy who was still working at shoving his food into his mouth.

She crossed her arms a bit. "I have a sitter. I'll drop him off there."

Will sat back in the chair and looked at her. "I can stay and watch him, if you want," he offered cautiously. "Look, I know you don't really know me yet …"

She was already shaking her head no.

"I'm not a rapist," he made sure to lock eyes with her, "and I'm not a pedophile. I'm a good babysitter. Want to call my brothers for references?"He added almost teasingly.

"Will, I appreciate the offer, but I think it just makes more sense to take him over to his usual sitter. Stick with routine."

"He seems pretty good with his routine right now – eating his supper. You must put him down soon too?" He looked at her. "Seriously – my big plans for tonight were to watch the game. I can do that here as easily as I can next door. It would save you having to run all over the place before you have to go whatever it is that you have to go to do right now – and it would mean he gets to sleep in his bed."

She was holding her arms tighter against her chest – but he could see she was thinking about it.

She felt like she was stupid to even consider it. She hardly knew this man. But he seemed normal and even though he'd only had limited interactions with Noah, she'd seen how her son seemed oddly at ease with him. It would be easier for her too. She hadn't found a new sitter yet – so it meant that she'd have to drag Noah down to Louise's in Chelsea, only to turn around and come back Uptown. Not to mention she'd have to repeat it again at whatever ungodly hour she managed to drag herself back in. Noah was still adjusting to his routine and surroundings in the new condo – dragging him across creation in the cold, damp weather that night was just going to disrupt him more. But wouldn't leaving him with a stranger be just as crazy and scary for her boy?

She sighed heavily – and forced herself to let a very large wall down. She thought she might be losing it. This was her son. Was she seriously going to leave him with a near stranger?

"I'll hopefully only be a few hours," she told him sternly and got a piece of paper and pen off the counter. "That's my cell, that's the squad room – if anything, ANYTHING, comes up, call. That's his usual babysitter – Louise – you can call there if you can't reach me and command can't locate me for some reason. OK?"

He just nodded.

"I try to have him in bed by about 8 but his schedule is still kind of screwed up right now with the move. He'll likely just fall asleep on the couch if you're watching TV anyways. I don't have cable hooked up yet, sorry. There's movies and stuff … somewhere." She looked at the pile of boxes still sitting in the corner in the living room. "He'll likely want you to read him another couple stories."

She walked towards Noah, "I'll just change him for you and put him into his pyjamas. You don't have to bathe him or anything like that."

"Olivia, seriously, I can handle it. I've changed diapers before."

She thought it wasn't his diaper changing abilities that she was worried about. It was what he'd be looking at and touching. _Not a pedophile. Nice guy. Widower. Babysits nieces and nephews. It's fine. Don't be paranoid. This is a big help. Be appreciative._ She tried to calm herself.

"Umm, OK," she agreed. She kneeled in front of Noah's high chair.

"Sweetie, Mommy's got to go to work for a while. But Will's going to stay here with you, OK?"

"'Ill," Noah said and pointed at him.

"Yeah, Will. I need you to be good for him, OK? And go to bed when he says."

"No!"

"Yes," she nodded and put her forehead against his. "You and Will will play for a while and then it's time for bed."

"Dinos?" Noah suggested hopefully, now wanting out of his chair. She pulled him out.

"Dinos sounds awesome," Will told Noah from across the table.

"OK," Olivia pulled her son's hands gently so he was looking into her eyes. "You'll play dinosaurs, Will will read you another story and then it's sleepy time. And when you wake up, Mommy will be home, OK?" The boy nodded.

"OK," she agreed and scooped him up and took him to the kitchen sink, wiping off his hands.

"Do you have your cell with you?" She asked Will. He fished it out of his pocket. "I want your number." He recited it off and she entered it into her phone. She then called it – making sure it rang. He held it up and waved it at her.

"You want me to answer it?" He asked.

She shook her head a little embarrassed at the comment. He clearly felt the mistrust. She didn't feel it was mistrust, though. It was caution – and it was her son they were talking about. She was allowed to be cautious.

She put some stuff in her purse and went to the living room were Noah had wandered.

"Give Mommy a hug," she told him and he obediently wrapped his arms around her neck and gave her a sloppy kiss. She kissed his temple and ruffled his hair. "Be good."

She stood and walked back towards the door. Will was leaning against the counter in the kitchen.

"I'll be back soon," she assured again.

"We'll be fine," he said.

"You better be," she said in an even tone but her eyes drilled into him.

He just nodded. She went out the door and he heard her lock it from the outside. He also didn't hear her move for several seconds and then it seemed like almost two minutes before he heard the ding of the elevator doors opening. He could just imagine her standing outside the door to her apartment cursing herself about leaving Noah with him.

He sighed. He went over to where Noah had a pile of toys in the living room. He seemed focused on pushing the box they were in around at the moment. He sat on the floor.

"OK, so where are these dinosaurs, bud?"

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd been gone much longer than what she expected to be. She realized that was the norm for her – and something she was used to. But she knew before even getting in the door, it was likely not something Will had expected or would be use to.

It was almost 2 a.m. when she opened the condo door. The lights were all out, though, she could see the glow from the television in the living room, so she flicked the switch in the small hallway and shrugged off her jacket and set her things on the counter. She noticed that not only had the leftover food from dinner been put away, the dishes had been done, now sitting clean and neatly on her dish rack.

By the time she went into the living room, she saw that he was sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He looked rumbled and clearly had fallen asleep in front of the television. She saw that the menu screen from what looked like her her first season set of Californication was up.

"I'm just going to check on him quickly," she told him and headed down the hallway to the bedrooms, again just flicking on the light out here and initially just peering through the open door.

Noah's small body was huddled under his comforter, one foot sticking out from underneath, his ass in the air and his arms tossed in opposite directions. He was softly breathing at almost a light snore.

She smiled and stepped into the room. She adjusted the comforter so it covered his foot. She softly stroked his head and gave him a small kiss.

"Mommy's home," she whispered in his ear as she stood back up even though she knew he wouldn't hear it. She hoped that in the future, somewhere in his unconscious mind, he'd remember and maybe as he got older forgive her for some of her shortfalls and know that she truly loved him and always came home to him.

Will was stumbled out of the bathroom just as she headed back down to the living room. He motioned for her to go by. She saw he'd gathered together some things on the coffee table – a laptop and what looked like a pile of assignments, that she suspected he'd gone back to his place to get and sit marking while he waited for her to get back.

"Sorry that it took so long," she said. "Did he go down OK?"

Will nodded. "Yeah, he was fine." He bent over and picked up his things from the table.

He'd kind of expected her to be back by like 11 p.m. – not the wee hours of the morning. He didn't know how she could possibly be a mom and keep these kinds of hours.

"You get calls like that a lot?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It all depends. Sometimes."

"Hmm," he was running his hand through his bed-head. She didn't think he was really awake. "Anyways, I've got an 8 a.m. lecture," he kind of motioned towards the door, excusing himself on his own.

She followed after him. "Thanks for watching him Will," she offered. "I appreciate it."

"Mmm, yeah," he mumbled. She wasn't sure if he was upset or asleep. "Night."

He wandered out the door. She looked out and watched him walk to his door and fumble with his keys before getting it open and going in. He gave her another small nod before disappearing and closing the door.

She sighed and closed her own door. She was exhausted too and knew she'd be lucky to get three hours sleep before Noah started stirring.

**Feedback always appreciated.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You know, when I introduced you to my coffee shop, I didn't think it'd mean you'd be claiming my spot in here as your own too," she heard and glanced up.

Her neighbour was standing over her with a large coffee and what looked like some sort of pretending-to-be-health conscious muffin. He had a newspaper tucked under his arm and he was giving her a ridiculously friendly smile.

"I must've missed the seating chart when I came in," she retorted.

He snorted – and didn't wait any longer for an invitation to join them. Pulling out one of the extra chairs at hers and Noah's table and settling himself down. She gave him a bit of a look as he invaded their space and her few moments of peace and quiet. She actually had managed to get Noah interested in at least mashing between his fingers the chocolate chip muffin pieces she'd broken up to a plate for him. When he wasn't doing that he was busy examining his dinosaurs that they'd brought with them – or using them to further mash up the muffin. She was trying to ignore that disgusting, unhygienic mess – and enjoy being out of the apartment on a Saturday morning and getting to sit and work on her crossword puzzle. At least that had been the plan. Now Will was sitting there – stirring at his coffee and breaking his muffin in half – like they were best friends in the world and they didn't even need to chat at all. She didn't really want to do a comfortable silence, or share space with him at all – so she continued to look at him hard. He finally glanced at her – apparently feeling himself under her stare.

"Ah, is it OK if I sit here?" he asked. "There weren't really any other tables free right now."

She glanced around. There were lots of stools along the window free. But she supposed she couldn't be that rude to him. After all, she was still trying to make amends with him for being so rude before – and he had watched her son for her one night earlier in the week. Though, she had kind of thought that might've officially scared him off. She hadn't seen hide-nor-hair of him since she'd left him babysitting Noah until the wee hours of the morning, when he'd likely been under the impression it was just a couple hour gig.

"Hey Noah," Will greeted the little boy and gave him a wave. "Dinos again, eh?"

"'Ill," her son responded, apparently already able to recognize the man.

"Dinos for the kiddo and … the Times for Mom? That's pretty heavy reading for this time of day on a Saturday," he offered.

"I'm just doing the crossword," she told him, looking back to her paper.

"Oh, you're one of them," he snorted and pulled a copy of the Ledger from under his arm.

"Says a man reading the rattiest rag in the city," she commented, glancing at him.

He looked at the front page of the paper for a minute – it had one of the cases she was working on leading, but he didn't need to know that – then he glanced at her.

"I think about 80 per cent of the city reads the Ledger," he said.

She snorted. "That says a lot about the intelligence of this city then."

"Whoa, Ms. Hoity-Toity New York Times Saturday Crossword Puzzle," he said and put up his hands. "What do you think, Noah? Am I allowed to read the sports section of the newspaper with the best sports section in the city?"

Noah giggled at him and mashed the feet of a brontosaurus into his muffin more.

"Well, thank you, for your approval, there buddy," he said and glanced at Olivia, purposefully opening the paper and paging to the sports section.

She watched him as he started to read – glancing over his latest attire. The guy still looked like he'd rolled out of a university longue. At least he didn't smell like it, she thought.

"You read the sports section?" she snorted.

She supposed she kind of knew that from having inspected his bio on the university's website – and she'd seen him wearing his ball caps. Still, nothing about the guy said sports nut at all. Looking at him, he still mostly looked like he'd been pulled out of an episode of the Big Bang Theory. She felt a little bad thinking that – because the guy clearly had some depth to him from their conversations so far. But she still just didn't know that they had anything in common beyond living next to each other to base even just a friendship on.

She wasn't even sure she wanted just a friendship – even though he seemed nice enough, genuine enough. She just wasn't really used to having people around in her life. It just seemed like extra baggage. She had enough on the go with trying to juggle work and Noah.

He glanced up at her from his reading. "Mmm," was all he grunted at her.

"The Knicks won," she said. She guessed maybe they had that in common. Maybe.

His head shot up at her. "You know – there's only one home opener a season. You shouldn't go ruining things like that for people."

"You aren't a real fan, if you didn't already know that."

He seemed to think about that. "Maybe I'm more interested in the numbers than I am the actual outcome."

"Very math professor of you," she nodded back at him and turned back to her puzzle.

The guy was so fucking weird, she thought. He said the randomness things. She'd spent a little bit of time with him now and she still couldn't help feeling like half the things he said were some sort of inside joke or allusion to something grander that was just going over her head. And now she was stuck sitting with him on her Saturday morning. She thought it was partially her fault – after all she'd tried to make nice after sticking her foot in her mouth about his death wife. But she didn't need a BFF now because of it. She was just trying to be a little more human – compassionate, outside of work. It was something she needed to work on a bit – at least outside of the office.

She could feel him watching her for several beats, before she saw him put his eyes back on his own paper. There'd been quiet for several minutes then. He just sat there reading the commentary on the game from the night before and occasionally taking a sip of his coffee and breaking off a piece of his muffin. Noah fussed a little bit and reached towards him, saying 'Ill' again and the man had glanced at him and handed him a piece of his muffin, which Noah accepted and actually put in his mouth. She'd watched it - her son taste-testing the Morning-Glory Crunchy-Granola Explosion that was on the other man's plate and apparently much more interesting than his chocolate chip banana that she'd bought for him.

"You like that, Noah?" she asked him.

"Yeeees," he responded with enough vocal enthusiasm that some other people in the shop turned to take a look. She thought that if they knew her son, they'd know that that recommendation meant that they should get their asses back to the counter and change their orders to get whatever the hell it was that Will was eating. It sure didn't look like her definition of a muffin. If you were going to ingest all the calories and fat of a muffin, at least pick something that didn't look like trail mix, she thought.

"What about this one?" she asked again, tapping Noah's own plate on the table a bit.

"Yick," he told her.

She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "Why yick?"

His only response was to mash his dinosaur's feet into it some more.

"That's disgusting, Noah," she told him and pulled the plate away from him a bit. But he fussed and pulled it back, only to mash the toy into it some more.

"I think that tells you all you need to know about your muffin choices," Will commented drily. "Four dollar well spent."

She glanced at him. She almost wanted to smile at the comment – but didn't really want to encourage him. "Usually he likes it."

But as she looked at Will, she saw that he was clearly trying not to laugh as her little boy continued to more vigourously mash the dinosaur's feet into the foot. It was to the point that the muffin was hardly distinguishable as that, though the toy's feet were clearly caked with it. Thank God it was plastic and she'd be able to throw it into the sink as soon as they got home. Though, with her luck, Noah would actually decide he wanted to eat it and but gumming at the thing's feet before they even made it that far.

She pulled the plate away again. "OK, Noah, enough."

He fussed some more letting out a bit of an "Eeek" and she felt her quiet time with her morning coffee and crossword puzzle quickly fading away.

"OK, sweets, you ready to get moving, is that it?"

"Mommmmmmeeeeee," he whined at her.

"OK," she said and glanced at Will, as she stood and started to work at getting her son's fall jacket back into him. She was doing her best to avoid his messy hands, which she did a quick wipe down of with a napkin. He'd need a better hand wash, though, to get the sticky, caked mess truly off him.

"You're leaving?" Will asked with some clear disappointment in his voice.

She nodded. "We've been here a while. He's restless."

"He just doesn't like his breakfast," Will commented and she shot him a dirty look. "Hey, buddy, you want to give Mom a break and eat some of mine?"

Noah reached towards Will's pro-offered muffin as she continued to struggle to get the jacket down his pudgy and squirming arms. But she shook her head at Will.

"No, it's time for us to get going," she said.

"Oh, com'on. We haven't even had a chance to discuss the Knicks' prospects this season," Will protested at her.

She offered him a small smile for his efforts, though she was also a little annoyed by them. How did she end up with the Nosiest Neighbour in Manhattan? He'd clearly missed the memo about keeping to yourself – don't look at anyone, don't smile at anyone and really don't talk to anyone.

She lifted her struggling son out of his seat and worked at re-arranging him into his stroller. Noah wasn't impressed at all and was making it known to the whole shop. She wanted to get out of there before it really disintegrated from vocal fussing to an all-out tantrum. She really hated being in public for his Terrible-Two Tantrums. It made her feel like about the crappiest mother on the planet, even though she knew it was semi-normal behaviour for a child his age.

"Another time," she told Will, as she pulled her own jacket on and throw Noah's messy toys and her crossword back into the bag she had over the handles of the stroller – and then started working at getting the thing out from the corner, as Noah continued to express his distaste with the whole situation.

Will stood and pulled some of the chairs away for her – giving her more space to get the thing turned around and out of the area. She gave him a small nod of thanks.

"Ah, I'll hold you to that," he called after her as she started to make her way for the door.

She glanced behind her shoulder. "To what?"

"The Knicks. Talking," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. The guy just didn't give up. "Ah, OK," she said and kept on going.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

**PLEASE NOTE: CHAPTER 9 WAS UPDATED AND IS COMPLETELY NEW. THE CHAPTER THAT WAS THERE WILL REAPPEAR LATER IN THIS STORY. NOW IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND YOU SHOULD LIKELY READ IT BEFORE CHECKING OUT THIS ONE.**

She looked out her peephole and sighed. She should've known it was Will knocking at her door. It was obvious. If it was anyone else – she would've had to buzz them up.

She'd managed to get through the week with only one Will sighting on the elevator in the morning. Though, he'd been as friendly as usual, it had only been about the 90 seconds it took for them to ride from their floor to the lobby and exit on the street, that she'd had to attempt to make conversation.

She'd kind of thought they were both just settling into the routine of – yeah, she lived there now, they were neighbours, but that was it. They didn't need to make conversation every time they ran into each other and they certainly didn't need to spend anytime together outside of those awkward elevators rides and occasionally bumping into each other around the neighbourhood. Apparently she'd been wrong.

She unlatched the door and slowly drew it open. He was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet – like he was giddy about something.

"The kiddo in bed?" he asked, holding up a pizza box and a six-pack of Beck's.

It was 8 p.m. on a Friday night. She'd just barely gotten Noah down and she really wasn't sure how asleep he was. It wasn't uncommon for her son to stir and be up again sometime between now and 10 p.m.

"Ah, I guess so," she offered, raising her eyebrow questioningly at him.

He held the pizza and beer up higher, like maybe she hadn't noticed it or hadn't taken it as an offering.

"I know you said you don't eat pizza because of you … diet, or whatever," he said kind of unsurely. "But it's a Friday night and the game's going to be starting, so I thought you might make an exception."

"Ahh," she got out again and rubbed at her eyebrow, crossing her arms.

"What? You've got other plans?" he said at her lack of real response and her having not invited him inside yet.

"Actually, I was planning on getting some work done tonight," she said.

He looked at her and made a face. "It's Friday night. Can't it wait?"

"Umm, actually, no, it can't. I'm working tomorrow."

"Oh," he again sounded disappointed. "You find a sitter around here for Noah yet, then?"

She crossed her arms tighter. "No. But my older sitter is helping out still for now. We're fine."

She didn't really want have to deal with him offering to watch her son again. She'd appreciated that he'd done it the other time. It had made things easier on her in that particular moment – and it really had worked out fine. Her apartment and her son seemed intact and no worse for the wear on her return. But it just really wasn't a habit she wanted to get into. One time was enough. She didn't want to open that door further and let him squirm in.

She still wasn't really sure what she thought of the guy or what to make of him. She still wasn't really sure how she felt about him spending anytime with her son. Though, she hadn't been blind to the fact that Noah seemed to light up whenever he was around him. She didn't really understand why. What the attraction was? Other than that maybe Will acknowledged him – babbled at him. Really, he talked to him like he was a whole lot older than two and was an active participant in the random crap he said to her son, who seemed to giggle at whatever the topic was, no matter what it was.

Will shrugged. "OK. I'm around, though, if you need any help with him over the weekend."

She shook her head at him and sighed. "Look, Will, I know we got off on the wrong foot before …"

"When you accused me of basically being a rapist?" he interrupted.

She gaped at him. She was hoping they'd moved passed that at least. Though, she had to admit, she still hadn't quite pegged him and what his intentions were. Most men didn't just go around looking for friendship from women – especially women with a toddler son.

"Umm … no … I meant …"

"Oh, Tessa," he said and shook his head. "Yeah. That's OK. You don't have to worry about that."

She rubbed her eyebrow and looked at him. "Will, I'm just really not sure what you want from me."

He looked at her questioningly. "Ah, well, right now an invitation in to set down this pizza and to open this beer before it gets warm would likely be nice."

She sighed and readjusted her arms across her chest.

"What? You are so busy with work you don't have time to have a slice and a beer?"

She shook her head. "I don't make a habit of sharing drinks with men I don't know."

Will pulled another face at that. "Well, for one, I would bet that the fact you have a kid means that that's not entirely true. I bet there was a drink with a man you didn't really know at the start in there somewhere. And two, you know me. Hi. I'm Will. I live next door. I believe we've spoken and I kind of babysat your kid for you like two weeks ago."

"I don't make a habit of sharing drinks with men I don't know in my apartment."

She saw his face fall a bit. "Ah, you know, you've had me in your apartment already before, right? And I remember there being wine involved. I also remember being left alone in the apartment with your child. I'm pretty sure you came back to neither plundered."

She sighed a bit.

"Will, I just don't do this."

"Do what?" he asked like he really was confused. "Make friends? Have some fun?"

"I just don't have time for this, Will," she said. "I've got a demanding job. I work shifts. I have a toddler at home. I'm a single mother. I don't have time for this," she said again and gestured at him.

"I still don't know what you mean by this?" he said. "I mean, I'm not asking for anything here. Well, I was kind of hoping to maybe get to take up some space on your sofa for a couple hours. You had said that you'd talk the Knicks with me. They're playing … like now. Good time to talk about them, I'd say. I'm offering you pizza, beer. I'm not looking for some sort of deep meaningful commitment here. Pizza. Beer."

She shook her head. "Is this how you interact with most people? Most women?"

"Ah, yeah. I'm sure you can tell it's doing wonders for my friendship pool and dating life. So … pizza, beer?"

She shook her head again. "No, Will."

His face fell a bit more but he gave a small shrug. "OK. I guess all this chit-chat means the pizza is cold and the beer is warm by now anyways."

She returned his shrug and started to close the door.

"Well, can I at least leave some of it with you?" he offered before she could completely shut the door in his face. "This is way too much for one person."

"I don't drink Beck's," she told him as she closed the door more.

"Oh, yeah, what do you drink?" he asked through the crack. "So I know for next time."

She shook her head. "No, next time, Will."

"It's vegetarian pizza," he tried one last time. "It's good for you. From Covo's. Real Italian, right from the wood-burning oven."

"Night, Will," she tried to say politely, as she really did shut the door in his face.

"Ah, OK, you have a good night then," she heard him mumble through the door. But she saw from the shadow under the door that it still took him several more seconds to decide to move back towards his own apartment.

She sighed hard and put her back against the door and looked up at the ceiling. Who was this guy? And what the hell was she going to do about him? She wasn't sure she could do a year's lease of having to ward off his friendliness – or his affections or whatever the hell it was. He said he wasn't looking for a relationship. He said he was a widower. But, my God, he was being fucking persistent.

He's just lonely, she told herself. But she just couldn't tell what he wanted. She wasn't getting a bad vibe from him. Her gut wasn't setting off any sort of alarm bells. But she still just wasn't ready to make friends yet. She didn't know how much clearer she could be with him. She was kind of dreading a year of being a bitch – and she really had been planning in live in that place for significantly longer than a year.

"Jesus Christ," she muttered to herself, as she wandered back into the living room and sat on the couch, where she had a file open on the coffee table along with her laptop. She glanced at the television and saw she had left the Knicks game muted on it.

"Fuck," she said quietly and glanced back to the door. He likely could've clearly seen the television going from where he was standing. She was watching what he wanted to watch – and she'd opted to do that alone rather than let him in. If shutting the door in his face wasn't bad enough – that likely made it even worse for the poor guy. She sighed, trying to decide if she'd stuck her foot in it again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was starting to wonder why her and Alex had even gotten together for lunch. They were hardly talking at all.

"So how's life in Appeals treating you?" she tried again, as she worked at spearing more of her salad onto her fork.

Alex glanced up at her from the salmon that she seemed to be picking at exceedingly slowly. "Still boring," she commented without adding anymore.

Liv nodded but didn't know what else to say at that point. Every conversation attempt seemed to have fallen flat so far.

She didn't really fully understand what was going on between her and Alex.

She'd been so happy when her friend had returned to the city after spending almost three years in witness protection. She'd hoped they'd be able to pick up that friendship where it had left off. God knows, she needed friends in her life and she thought Alex likely would too as she settled back into the New York lifestyle and got used to dealing with the workload of an assistant district attorney again.

But Liv supposed her own reality had changed a lot by the time Alex had come back. Noah had been about four months old when she'd reappeared. Alex hadn't even known she was pregnant. How could she?

Her having a baby had come as a bit of a shock, she supposed – to more people than just Alex, herself included. After all, it was kind of unplanned. She was single. It probably didn't really fall into the character realm or life prospects realm of how most people around her envisioned her – at least not with the walls she kept up and the arm's length she kept most people at. Still, she'd kind of thought Alex might be happy for her, maybe even excited for her. Hell, Liv had been excited at the prospect of getting to show Noah off to her – and at the concept of hopefully getting some adult, female company occasionally to talk to and spend time with, to vent at. Someone else to share Noah with besides Elliot, who really was probably only so interested in hearing her baby stories and ranting, venting and frustrations. He was actually likely kind of sick of hearing about Noah, no matter how supportive he'd been during the whole pregnancy and with her still working at figuring out motherhood and managing it in relation to her job so far.

But Alex's reaction and openness to interacting with her, now as a single mother, working as a full-time cop, rather than just a single women, hadn't really worked out that way Liv might've hoped.

Alex had been more than a little shocked about her having Noah and it hadn't seemed to have been in a positive way. She'd never gotten a concrete read from her about what was going on – but she'd sure had a lot of thoughts about what the hell was going through the other woman's mind. Liv had basically decided that Alex was treating it as some sort of betrayal - in the friendship or in life or just to all single women working in jobs they did? To feminism, maybe? Or maybe a bit more than that.

Still, it hurt a bit. It bothered her. But there was only so much she could do about it. She'd still tried to maintain the friendship. The reality, though, was it had become more strained. It always seemed like Alex didn't know what to say to her or just didn't want to talk to her. So between that – and their jobs and her time outside of work being taken up more and more with Noah, they just really saw each other less and less. And, really that gave them less and less in common and seemingly less and less to talk about.

"How'd the move go?" Alex finally asked after another extended silence of them just slowly eating. Liv wasn't eating quite as slowly. She was at the point she was pretty much ready to get out of the awkward situation and back to work. Some days rapists just seemed easier than dealing with female politics. Why'd it have to be so fucking complicated? Sometimes dealing with guys – even the bad ones – really was just simpler.

She nodded. "Yeah, it was good. It went smoothly. Basically settled at this point. It's been almost two months now."

Two months and they'd managed to hardly speak to each other in that period. A few scattered emails. Some unreturned phone calls.

Alex hadn't offered to help with the move. Nor had she offered to help with the packing or unpacking. It was another thing that just felt like she'd kind of pretended wasn't happening. Helping friends move in New York was just … something you did. When you aren't in the Fifth Avenue bracket and paying people to do it all for you – rented vans, jammed packed trunks of friends' vehicles and as many extra hands as you could get to make short order of it was just how it was done.

Liv had helped Alex move before. Hell, she'd helped Elliot with getting some of Maureen's crap out of the dorms and into the apartment she was sharing with girlfriends. It was just what you did for friends – even just colleagues. But not a peep came from Alex about the matter until now.

"I still can't believe you moved all the way up there. That you gave up an apartment in that neighbourhood for Hamilton Heights," she said.

Liv had heard it before. Alex had treated it like some atrocity that she'd give up her apartment in Chelsea to move all the way to the top-end of Manhattan – far away from the downtown and the nightlife, and even just work. But it had always cost a small fortune to live there – especially on her salary. She'd been able to justify it with the rent-controlled building she'd managed to wait ages for to get into – and really, before she didn't have anything else to spend her money on before. She might as well have been living in an area she liked and in an apartment she loved.

She'd held onto it for long enough, though. Within weeks of having Noah home from the hospital, it'd been clear that a one-bedroom apartment just wasn't going to be all that practical. During her pregnancy she'd convinced herself that a one-bedroom would be fine until he was out of a crib. She'd figured she could make it until he was about 18 months or two-ish. Lots of time to find something else. But the explosion of baby all over her space, the need for extra storage, the longing to get to sleep in a room without a crying baby had grown quickly over the first several months of Noah's life.

She'd still managed to keep to the original plan of waiting until he was a little older before moving. Not so much for the reasons she'd told herself before her son was born – but because she'd spent some time being unrealistic about where she wanted to live – still in Manhattan, she wasn't switching borros and dealing with some sort of ridiculous commute – and what she was willing to pay. Not to mention dealing with waiting lists and just even finding the time to go and look at places. She'd put her name on the waiting list for a two-bedroom in the building she was living in. By the looks of it, though, she'd manage to get into one by the time Noah was about 10. So that wasn't going to work.

Eventually she'd just given up, gotten more realistic about what she could afford in the city now as a single mother and where she'd be willing to raise her son. It had meant going north. Really, she'd lived in Chelsea – and the apartment – long enough anyways. She was due for a change.

She was getting kind of sick of the Chelsea Boys and the LGBT scene and the assumptions made just because of her attire or hairstyle - and her job. She wasn't sure how much more she could listen to about art and yet another gallery opening either. The shopping options in the area were dangerous too. She didn't need to be tempted to be spending money on boots and purses and dresses that she hardly ever got to wear and definitely couldn't afford anymore anyways.

Liv glanced at her from her meal and shrugged. "Well, living in a one-bedroom just wasn't really working anymore – and I couldn't afford a two-bedroom in that area. I'm actually paying a bit less than before and it's a hell of a lot bigger."

"But you're in West Harlem."

"I'm in Hamilton Heights," she corrected. She didn't care that the neighbourhood was still in Harlem – it was different. "It's going through a lot of gentrification right now."

"So in about a decade it might be worth living in," Alex commented.

Liv sighed and shook her head. "There's a lot of history in the community. It's a newer condo building. It's on a good block. I feel safe. We're walking distance to Riverbank. I'm close to transit. It's working for us. You should come and see the place some time – and what's going on in the neighbourhood. See Noah," she offered.

Alex examined her for a moment and then went back to her meal. "How's the kid anyways?"

Liv really had to fight not to roll her eyes – or worse put down her fork and end the lunch date. "Noah," she said purposefully. She hated that Alex almost never referred to her son by his name – like she couldn't bring herself to say it or fully acknowledge him. "He's really good. He's starting to get a lot more chatty. Some of the stuff he comes out with is pretty funny. He's a little bossy, though. He likes the word 'no' a lot – and it's variations."

Alex offered a small nod but not further comment. Olivia had a recent photo of Noah in her purse. Alex hadn't seen him in about six months. But she didn't get the sense at all that she cared to see how much her son had grown and changed in that period.

"How's Kurt?" Alex dropped, though.

Olivia sighed and looked across the table again. "I have no idea. I haven't heard from him in about eight months. Any interactions are through our lawyers."

"Healthy relationship," she'd offered drily.

"We aren't in a relationship – beyond his financial responsibilities to his son, which he isn't living up to. End of story."

Alex didn't say anything. Olivia thought her even asking was slightly obnoxious. The only reason she even allowed the comment was because she'd previously asked Alex for some general legal advice when she'd started pursuing Kurt for child support.

Still, Alex knew they weren't in a relationship. That they hadn't been in a relationship for years. Alex never even fucking met the man – but she still felt the need to imply Kurt was some how still in Liv's life. Olivia just wanted to forget that Kurt had even happened – as much as that was possible when she had a daily reminder that it had.

"Are you seeing anyone? Trevor Langdon?" Olivia shot back, equally as harshly and purposefully, just to rub some vinegar in her wounds after the attorney so clearly trying to be hurtful to her. She thought that Alex's relationship with the defence attorney had been about as stupid and career-damaging move as her sleeping with a newspaper editor. Though, Alex had seemed to have moved through that relatively unscathed – and it had also been eons on ago. Still. The mention of his name made her point and go across her distaste about the Kurt comment.

"Who has time for that?" Alex said and glanced at her with hard eyes.

"Maybe you should make time," Liv said.

It was true. She thought about adding something about the stick shoved up Alex's ass or that getting laid might do her temperament some fucking good. But she knew that would just be obnoxious, uncalled for, and just add fuel to whatever the hell was apparently simmering between the two of them today.

Still, Alex's temperament since being shuffled into Appeals after she lost her position as bureau chief of Homicide had been pretty awful. It was getting worse every time Liv saw her. She got that she was bored, she was unhappy. But she really didn't need to be taking it out on people around her – especially people who cared about her. That just got you into trouble – Liv knew that from experience. Not to mention, if the job was really that fucking boring, you'd think she'd actually have some time to maybe establish a relationship while she had the fucking chance.

Alex made eye contact. "Maybe you should take some of your own advice. You've never seemed to be very good at that either. You used to be about the job."

Olivia shook her head. "I thought we were getting together for lunch – not some sort of passive-aggressive argument about what? How I'm living my life? I'm still about the job. I still do my job. I still love my job. I love being a mother too, Alex. I'm sorry that that's so … whatever the hell it is to you …"

She put her fork down at that point and glanced around the restaurant. Their waitress hadn't checked on them in a while – she was about ready to pay her half of the bill and leave. If the waitress didn't show up soon, she was actually ready to throw a $20 on the table, not worry about the change or the split, and just get out of there.

She hated being judged by someone she had long considered a friend; worse, by another woman who worked and waded in the same shit as her. Alex, out of anyone, should at least sort of understand what it was like. How hard it was to balance work and to have a relationship with that they saw. How their fertile years – how their years as young, eligible women in the eyes of men – where basically fading and pretty quickly at that point. Olivia figured hers were basically gone – especially now that a kid was part of her package. Alex at least had a handful of years left – if she could manage to be less of a bitch and not be quite as married to the job. She knew the woman had been through a lot. But fuck – they all had.

And, really, Olivia, didn't care about the less than ideal circumstance she'd gotten pregnant with Noah. She was happy to have him. There was no way she'd trade it – and she wasn't going to have someone suggest that she'd made a poor decision there or had given up something more important. The job? She loved her job. She thought it was important. She was still driven by it. But she loved her son too. She'd wanted a child for years. She wasn't going to feel guilty about that.

Alex seemed to consider her for a moment and what she'd said. "So are you seeing anyone?" she'd said. There was a softness to her voice now though. The edge wasn't there. She was trying.

Still, Liv glanced at her from scanning the restaurant. "Who has time for that?" she said sarcastically back to her with more than a little bit of harshness in her tone.

"Maybe you should make time," Alex said back just as drily and allowed a small smile.

So Liv snorted and rubbed her eyebrow and was quiet for a moment. She tried to let her anger fade – to try again, to salvage the lunch at least, if not the friendship.

"There's a guy at the new building – my neighbour – I don't know what he's up to," she said. "Flirting, I guess."

Alex gave her a little smile at that. "Have you forgotten what flirting looks like?" she teased and went back to poking at her plate.

Liv snorted and cautiously picked up her own fork again, letting herself simmer down a bit more. "I don't get out much."

Alex glanced up again and at least gave her some smiling eyes. "So what, you aren't interested?"

Olivia shook her head. "Not really. I told him as much. He said he wasn't looking for a relationship either. But he's been … persistent anyways."

"Persistent how?"

Olivia sighed and shrugged. "I don't know. Little things. We end up walking to the subway at the same time at least couple times during the week and he's always helping with the stroller on the stairs. He can't ride the elevator in silence. If he sees me in the store or café – he'll chat at me. He's bought me fucking tomatoes."

Alex laughed a little. "Maybe he's just friendly," she suggested.

"We live in New York," Olivia said and Alex snorted. "It's other stuff too. He wanted to take me on a tour of the neighbourhood. Invited himself to sit down with us while I was out at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. Showed up with pizza and beer on a Friday night. Always offering to help with things – unpacking, watching Noah, picking up groceries."

"Slightly creepy," Alex allowed.

Liv nodded. "And I'm stuck living next to him for at least another 10 months."

"Maybe you need a restraining order," Alex offered with a smile.

Liv snorted. "I don't think he means any harm. I think he's just lonely. It's just kind of … pathetic."

"Pathetic is not attractive."

She snorted again. "No kidding."

"Not cute?"

She shrugged. "He's OK. He's not unattractive. No fashion sense. Dresses somewhere between frumpy and hipster. Sort of geeky. His clothes fit so badly it's hard to tell what he's got going on under there. Nice eyes, though."

"You get out of him what he does?"

"A math professor."

Alex snorted at that and gave her a grin. "That is a little geeky. What? City? Columbia?" she asked, listing off the two schools closest to where she was now living.

"NYU. Courant."

"That's impressive, though," she offered.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"He's still not worth just having some fun with?"

"I don't do fun," Liv said.

Alex snorted. "At least some things don't change."

"Well, I've got a lifelong reminder of the last guy I thought I was just having some fun with. So I think I've gotten that out of my system for … a very long time," Liv commented.

She wouldn't trade Noah. Ever. But sometimes she was still mad at herself that she'd let herself get pregnant. Or maybe more that she let herself get pregnant unplanned and with Kurt. At least she got a baby out of it. God knows if that chance would've presented itself again – in the good ol'fashioned way anyways.

"At least Noah's a cute reminder," Alex said and gave her a small look.

Liv allowed a little smile of that – partially out of gratitude that she'd at least acknowledged her son and said something nice about him. Noah was cute. Too cute and he knew it.

"He's a widower," she said, though, not commenting on her statement about Noah's adorableness.

Alex gave her a look. "Wow. He is chatty."

She gave a small nod. "A 9/11 widower," she added.

Alex's eyes widened a bit. "Ah. Damaged goods."

She nodded. "Yeah. Very."

"So what are you going to do about him?"

Liv shrugged. "I don't know. I've been trying to be polite about it but he's not really taking the hint."

"You do rude well," Alex offered. "Give that a go."

"Thanks," Liv spat a bit but sighed. "Noah really lights up when he's around. It's nice to see."

Alex gave her a look.

"It's like little boys are inherently trained to know … when they're around other males. They need it or want it or thrive on it … or something. It's the same thing when I have him into the squad him. Him and Munch …"

"He likes Munch?"

"Noah adores John," she smiled and shook her head. "It's funny. This is different, though. And Will … he's good with him."

"But not in a creepy way?"

Olivia smiled. "Yeah, don't worry. I've already embarrassed myself with paranoia and nearly accused of him of being on his way to becoming a rapist or a pedophile with his awkward social skills and strange courting methods."

Alex snorted.

"He's not creepy, though," Olivia allowed. "He's nice – just a little … unique, I guess."

"His name is Will?" Alex said and Liv nodded. "What's his last name?"

Olivia glanced at her again from her meal. "McTeague. Why? Do you think you know him?"

"Will McTeague?"

She nodded again. "Yeah. Did I miss something on my little background check of the building and area?"

Alex tapped her fork on the plate a bit. "Well, they're both really common names."

Olivia snorted. "No kidding. I Google-stalked him and read his bio on NYU's website and there about six Wills just in the math department."

Alex looked at her again, though. "Is he from around here?"

She nodded. "Yeah. He grew up on Staten Island. He went to Harvard, though. Know him from there some how? He's likely more your age. You might've been there around the same time."

Alex shook her head. "It's not that. Is his family involved in the fire department?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. He hasn't said much about his family."

"What's he said?"

Olivia gave her another strange look. "You're starting to make me feel like I really missed something about this guy."

Alex shook her head. "No, it's nothing creepy or anything like that. It's a common name. It could be nothing."

Olivia pushed what was left of her lunch around her plate a bit. "Ah, he's mentioned that he has two older brothers. That they're both married. That he has a bunch of nieces and nephews. That his brothers live on the same block as his parents back on Staten Island. That's about it."

"He hasn't said any names?"

"Ah … I think he said the brothers' names are Tom and Rob. I don't know. All very run of the mill Irish-Catholic names."

"Tom, Rob and Will McTeague?" Alex said again and looked at her.

Olivia shook her head and shrugged. "Yeah. What did I miss about this guy?"

Alex shook her head. "Wow," she said.

"Wow what?"

"I think your suitor …"

Olivia sighed and interjected. "He's not my suitor. He's my neighbour. I'm not looking for a relationship right now."

"Whatever. I think he might be Ted McTeague's son."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"He's a high-up in the UFA. He's been really involved in a lot of the WTC disability negotiations and has been at hearings around some of the legislation proposals. He's offered testimony. He's publicly talked about his three sons – Rob, Tom and Will. A firefighter and an FDNY EMS – both involved in 9/11 efforts, and his youngest son, Will, who lost a wife in the Towers."


	12. Chapter 12

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia wasn't really talking to Will in the elevator - and he seemed to almost be OK with that. Though, she supposed he was distracted by making goofy faces at Noah, who was giggling like it was about the funniest thing he'd ever seen. She was attempting to hide her annoyance about it all and reminding herself that it was only 30 seconds of her day. Soon she'd be in her apartment and the door would be closed – and they would have hopefully avoided yet another awkward moment.

It wasn't to be, though. He'd planted himself against the elevator door when it got to their floor – keeping it open as Noah took his sweet time toddling out of it and with her down the hallway. Will had used it as an opportunity to follow after them – even though his door was technically after hers and he needed to follow that way anyways, she supposed. But he didn't need to plant his shoulder against the wall just after her door and watch her as she dug for her keys in her bag.

She glanced at him – but didn't say anything. She really didn't want to get involved in a conversation or open up the opportunity for him to invite them to do something with him again – or for him to invite himself to do something with her and Noah. Instead, she'd just rudely get herself and her son inside and shut the door in his face, she decided.

"Did I do something to upset you?" Will finally said, as she continued to dig around in her purse.

She glanced up at him again. "No," she shrugged.

"You've been quiet lately – in the elevator. Don't say hi at the bogetta. Seems like you're running the opposite way half the time, actually."

She finally pulled out the keys and worked on getting the door open. "Ah, yeah, I'm not much of a morning person and when I'm out with Noah, you know, it's just juggling multiple things at once."

She pushed the door open and Noah went charging in as fast as his little legs could carry him. She glanced at Will again and started to follow after her son, but Will said, "It's night."

She stopped and looked at him. "It's night?"

"Right now, it's 6:30. It's not morning. You didn't say two words on the elevator. No hi, no how's life. No nothing."

She rubbed her eyebrow. "I'm just not … chatty, Will. My workday is long. I just … like to get home, spend time with Noah, get him to bed and have some … quiet time. I really don't feel the need to have a conversation with every neighbour I see on the elevator, every time I see them on the elevator."

"Well, neither do I," Will said to her. "But we're like … neighbour-neighbours not … tenant neighbours. I kind of thought we might be moving towards being friends or something too."

She sighed and looked into the apartment. Noah had found his way to the living room on his own – though still in his jacket and outdoor shoes – and was working at spreading his toys even more across every flat surface and step-on-able space in the area.

"Will, we hardly know each other – we aren't really friends. We're neighbours," she told him.

He nodded and hung his head a bit examining the floor. She thought that might be the end of it, he'd become so quiet, so she started to inch away again, but he again opened his mouth.

"You know," he said quietly, "I get that you likely deal with a lot of assholes. In your work – like the people you have in and probably some of the other cops. And, I get that you've likely been hurt … by Noah's dad or whatever. But I'm not an asshole. I'm probably not like other guys you know. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm not."

She snorted. "Is that your expert opinion?"

He glanced up and gave a small smile. "Yeah, it actually is. I'm a good guy, Olivia. I know it. And, I'm really not asking for anything – expect to have an OK relationship with my neighbour. It being a friendship might kind of be nice. But whatever."

She offered no response but watched him as he scoffed his shoe across the carpet a bit. "I get busy with work and stuff too," he told her. "I've got colleagues at work and … you know … things I do to occupy my time outside of work … acquaintances and stuff … but I don't have a lot of friends. There's not a lot of people in our age bracket in this building – or even this block."

"You're young, you're single – take the metro a few stations south, I think you'll find lots of bars and clubs and potential friends within your reach," she commented.

He just shook his head at her. "Yeah, in your mid-30s and picking up 'friends' at bars. The club scene is totally my thing too. Totally. It's the hip place for 30-something widowers who work in the math department to hang out." The sarcasm was dripping from him.

"You might still have more luck there than with random new female tenants in your condo building," she told him seriously – because she was serious.

She still thought he was being a little pathetic – if not borderline ridiculous with is presence to be 'friends' with her. She still wasn't entirely believing that that was all he was after. Grown men don't try that hard to be friends with women. Grown-ups in general don't put that much energy into making new friends she thought – men or women. The guy was either beyond lonely, beyond desperate or mentally ill. She didn't want to even start psychoanalyzing what the hell was going on in his head – the extent of the damage that his wife's death must've created. Maybe her next step was to broach the topic of the strange new neighbour the next time George was into the squad room.

He sighed. "Yeah, OK. Fair point."

"I don't think we'd have much in common, Will."

He shrugged. "I guess we're never going to know either, right?" He glanced at her again, but she was careful to keep her face neutral and let her indifference really sink in for him so he could make his own decision and hopefully finally move on.

"Anyways, have a good night," he said after what felt like a lengthy pause and with some sadness. But he did start to move away.

She thought about it for a moment, though, and called at him. "Will …"

He looked back, almost with this little puppy-dog hopefulness in his eyes. She knew she was likely going to be quashing that with her next comment.

"Your family? Are they involved in the fire service?"

She saw his face change a bit and he slumped against the wall where he was standing and looked at her again.

"Why are you asking that?"

"Your family, they're 'The McTeagues'?" she said, even putting the quotation marks around it for him.

After Alex had said it at lunch the previous week, it had all kind of fallen into place. She wouldn't have even considered it herself. McTeague was a common name in New York City. Will was even commoner. She hadn't thought anything of it. But as soon as Alex brought up the McTeagues – the name was sort of notorious. Mostly for the parties they hosted and how coveted getting an invite to one of them was. You seemed to have really made it into some sort of inner circle in the NYC first responder community when you managed to end up at one of the McTeague bashes. Not to mention there was the union implications that the name brought up and the infamy that the one brother had - and some of the trouble he'd gotten into and out of – because of his name and how prominently they'd established themselves as a generational first responder family in the city – more specifically a FDNY family.

Olivia knew the name – not the first names of the family – but McTeague. And, after Alex had pushed her in that direction, she'd done some research of her own to learn a bit more about them beyond the name. She'd even asked around. People knew them. Or at least knew of them. Will, though, no one seemed to know much about him. It seemed like he was the absent son. She'd heard lots of little anecdotes about Rob and Tom over the last week or so – and even more about his father, Ted.

"Well my parents to have a little sign in front of their front porch that says that," Will commented but didn't offer further response.

"I think you know what I mean," she said.

He sighed and looked at her. "Why does it matter? Is this why you're being more anti-social than usual lately?"

She rolled her eyes a bit and shook her head. "It just seems like a strange thing not to mention – when you knew I'm with the NYPD. You didn't think I'd eventually find out somehow?"

"Well, no, I didn't think you'd be talking about me with people or researching me … or whatever the hell you're doing to know who my family is. I also just generally didn't think that it would be something that would come up anytime soon with my neighbour, cop or not," he said with a certain level of anger in his voice.

She gave him a look. She didn't really like his tone.

"Why does it even matter?" he spat again.

"Because you're a McTeague – and I'm in the NYPD – and you're … flirting with me," she said kind of exasperated at him.

"I am not flirting with you," Will said and nearly laughed at her. "If I was flirting with you – you'd know I was flirting with you. I'm just trying to be … polite. Maybe you should try it. Maybe that's something I learned from my famous family."

"Oh, they don't have a reputation for being polite. Loud mouthed, yes. Polite, no."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Have a good night," he said and started back down the hall.

"You should've told me – given me some sort of heads up on who the hell you are," she said a little too loudly at him.

He turned around. "Why? Does it make a difference? Does it make you want to talk to me more? Talk to me less? I'm not my fucking family, Olivia. It's just a name. I'm me. I'm offering my friendship – not a fucking connection to the McTeagues."

He shook his head. "You're fucking high maintenance," he nodded at her. "I'm not even interested in you that way – and you're fucking high maintenance. I'll see you around."

He apparently kept his keys in an easily accessible place for when he wanted to plot his escapes, because he managed to get to his door and in it – before she was able to say anything else, or rather before she was able to say even more to him that she might regret. She seemed to be becoming an expert at stepping-in-it when it came to her neighbour.

She sighed and shook her head. She wasn't even sure why she even cared. She was trying to get rid of him. She might've finally have accomplished just that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She pounded on his door with an open hand. It was 11:35 p.m. and she'd been listening to his music vibrate against her living room wall for the better part of two hours. She thought he was being completely inconsiderate, if not an arrogant asshole. She was sick of it.

She just kept on beating against the door. She doubted that at the level the music was playing, he wasn't even hearing her so her plan was to just keep hitting her hand against the door until he did. Or until five minutes passed – then she was calling the fucking superintendent to deal with telling him to shut the fuck up.

She finally heard the bolt click and crossed her arms waiting to tell him off but it was some bearded guy in a Star Wars tshirt that looked like it was having trouble expanding across his beer belly that opened the door. He reeked of alcohol and she didn't like the way he was looking at her up and down.

"You aren't the delivery guy," he mumbled at her.

She thought he was looking more at her breasts than her face and she realized that in being pissed off she'd stormed next door just in one of her sleep tanks and hadn't even bothered to pull on a sweater or something first. She was sort of regretting that now. She hadn't really considered it would be anyone other than Will who would answer the door. Not that she thought dressing like that in front of him would've been the best idea either, but she didn't think he'd be leering at her in quite the same way.

She crossed her arms tighter against her chest. "I'm not," she said, more than a little annoyed. "Where's Will? I want you to turn down the fucking music."

"Mmm," the guy mumbled at her again and wandered back into the condo. "Hey, Willbo," he yelled over the blaring sound. "You're in trouble. Some chick's at the door. Wants you to turn down the music. Where's the fucking pizza guy?"

She heard the music fall to a slightly more reasonable level but then heard several male voices talking about giving and getting "wood", which she thought was even more inappropriate based on how the asshole who answered the door was just looking at her.

Will finally sauntered to the open door. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and was in socked feet. His hair was tousled in a way that it was standing on end like he'd been pushing his hands through it way too much. He was wearing grey cords that were still riding too low on him for a man his age, she thought. But more than the low-cut pants, she hated more that as he took his time walking towards her, she noticed the way the pants were highlighting his bulge in way too complimentary manner. Worse still, he was actually wearing a tshirt that almost fit him. Or at least, rather than being too big, the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt might've been slightly too small. It was hugging against a clearly flat stomach and its sleeves were pulling up a bit on each of his arms – showing off the bottoms of a tattoo of each very defined bicep.

For the first time, she got a look at what the guy might actually look like under his usually frumpy and oversized attire and she hated a little that part of her was suddenly seeing him as rather attractive. Not her type and she wasn't interested, she told herself, but fuck. She told herself it'd just been too long – that she'd have those kind of thoughts about any guy who she wasn't having to deal with in a work environment on a Friday night at this point. And, she reminded herself she was fucking pissed at him in more than one way.

He planted his shoulder against the door jam and just looked at her. He smelled like beer too.

"Nice pajamas," he commented and she again tightened her arms and glanced down at herself. She really wished she'd put on a sweater or a robe or something before coming over.

"You're being really fucking inappropriate," she spat at him. "And, that guy at the door, Mr. Wandering Eyes. Disgusting. 'Wood' talk now? I can hear that. Inappropriate, Will - for grown men. Remember what my job is?"

He snorted. "We're playing Settlers of Catan," he said.

She tossed up her hands in frustration. "Oh, well, that must make it all better."

"It's a game," he said. "A trading game. They're negotiating a trade of lumber – wood. They aren't talking about you. Sorry to disappoint you. Should've tried a teddy or something, if you wanted to get their tongues wagging."

She crossed her arms again and glared at him as he took a drink out of his bottle. "That was a really uncalled for comment too," she told him.

He shrugged. "Can you arrest me for that?"

"I could call you in for disturbing the peace with your music. You're being really inconsiderate."

He snorted again and rolled his eyes. "What? You don't like Flogging Molly either?"

"I don't like my living room wall vibrating. You'll wake up Noah."

"Noah sleeps in the living room?"

"You know what I mean," she spat at him.

"I turned it down. Sorry," he said with a clear annoyance in his voice.

"Well, I'd appreciate if you could turn it down more – and if you and your friends could keep it down."

He did a salute. "Aye, aye, Captain. Is that all?"

She glared at him. "And you think you're a nice guy? You're being a fucking asshole."

He shrugged. "Ah, well, I guess I'm just reacting to two months of you being a fucking bitch."

She looked at him hard. "My wall starts shaking again – or I hear any of your fucking voices through it – I'm calling in, not the super, Will, the police. They will come over here. So keep it the fuck down. Don't you dare wake up my son."

"Uh huh," he said and started to close the door in her face. "I'd invite you to play – but you don't do fun. Have a good weekend."

She gaped at the door for a moment as he closed it and she heard the bolt move back into place. She glared at it.

"Fucking asshole," she muttered and turned back towards her own condo.


	14. Chapter 14

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced at the guy wading towards her and Noah in the swallow end of the pool.

She'd noticed he was one of two people who'd been on the far side of the pool swimming lengths in the cordoned off lanes of the Olympic pool. But the rest of the pool had near been empty. That was pretty much exactly what she'd been going for and why she'd picked to come over to the pool around dinnertime on a Sunday night – just 90 minutes before the place even closed.

She just was trying to have some spool-down time with her son before having to get back to the job in the morning. She didn't want to be dodging around other children, chatting with other moms with floating toddlers or being propositioned by any men who thought a public pool was an ideal place to look at women in bathing suits and to try to pick-up.

She sunk lower in the water, getting everything but her head out of view and turned her back to the guy, floating Noah around with her – and hoping the guy would take the hint. Or that she was overreacting and he was just heading for the exit ladder closest to the men's locker room.

But, she heard a "hey" and glanced over her shoulder again and saw the guy pull off his goggles, followed by his swim cap – and it quickly sunk in that it was clearly Will. There was no way she would've recognized him in the swim get-up – and nor by his body, that he clearly wasn't feeling the need to sink down into the water and hide.

She tried not to look at him too hard – not to be that vain or desperate or just perverted. She didn't like when men examined women like that, she shouldn't do the same to men. But the guy's stomach, though not defined with six-pack abs, was so flat and his chest so defined. But more than that she couldn't help but notice he was covered in tattoos. Just with him standing in front of her, she could see them going down both sides of his ribs, wrapping around his one shoulder and on both biceps. And she was sure when she'd been spacing out and looking over at the two swimmers, she'd seen tattoos across the man's back and on his one leg as he kicked through each length.

"Ah, hey," she said back to him.

They hadn't spoken or seen each other since their spat on Friday night. She wasn't sure if she was ready to talk to him yet. But he looked like he was over it. Maybe he had less to get over, she thought. He'd bitten off her head twice in less than a week. She thought it was kind of obnoxious. By her accounts, he had more to apologize for than her – despite anything he may have implied in their previous conversations. She wasn't too thrilled about the way he'd talked to her – his tone or the fact he'd called her a bitch. She wasn't used to letting men – or anyone – get away with talking to her like that.

He sunk down in the water a bit and smiled at Noah. "Hey, Noah," he said.

Apparently her son recognized him without any trouble, because he quickly declared, "'Ill" and struggled from her grip a bit and managed to paddle the few feet to Will, who just smiled more and put his hands under her son's armpits and helped keep him afloat.

"Looks like you've got a swimmer here," he told her with a small smile.

She sunk in the water a bit more and tucked a piece of her hair behind her hair. It was at an extremely annoying length right now and she felt like she was always adjusting it. She couldn't decide if she wanted to cut it shorter again or just put up with it while it grew out. She hated how she kept playing with it around her neighbour, though, and wondered if he even noticed. She noticed, though, and it made her think that getting it cut might be the better option.

"Ah, yeah, he likes the water," she commented.

Will was supporting under Noah's belly as her son paddled around him. Noah's comfort around the man always surprised her. It actually made her a little uncomfortable – but she also didn't want to overtly discourage it either. She thought that might damage Noah somehow – and Will hadn't done anything to deserve that, as much as she felt a little pissed with him.

Her son needed male role models in his life and she tried her best not to discourage the few interactions he did have with the men around them. She still wasn't sure how she felt about adding Will to the list of men around them, though. Still, he'd definitely been around them for two months now – and Noah seemed to eat it up. She supposed her son saw Will more than he did Elliot or Munch or Fin. They were seeing Will in some capacity at least three times a week – if not more – and even if it was just those awkwardly silent elevator rides, where she tried to ignore him while he made silly faces and even sillier chatter at her son.

"Is he doing lessons?" Will asked as Noah splashed at him.

She held out her hands for Noah and he worked at paddling back to her. "Yeah, we've done some Parent and Tot stuff and Learn to Swim."

Will gave her a small smile. "You can tell. Good form."

She snorted at his joke about her son's awkward but determined doggie paddle.

"What about you?" he asked, "Are you a swimmer?"

She shook her head. "Nah, not really. You know, it's just something you do with toddlers."

"You look like you could be a swimmer," he offered.

She glanced at him and again felt the need to sink lower in the water. He seemed to notice and sunk a bit lower too so the water was almost lapping at his chin.

"I can watch him for a few minutes if you wanted to get some lengths in – or time in the hot tub or sauna or whatever."

"We're OK," she told him. "Thanks."

He bobbed a bit in the water and seemed to shrug. "OK," he said. But seemed to stay there like there was more he wanted to say. Instead, though, he just kind of buoyed there watching them and she glanced at him again – as Noah started to make his way towards the side wall and where they'd left a flutter-board sitting on the deck.

"I wanted to apologize about Friday night," he said, as she really turned her back and grabbed the board for Noah, putting it back into the water and making sure he had a hold of it, before maneuvering them both around to look at Will again.

She shrugged. "OK. Apology accepted."

He gave almost a little laugh and shook his head like maybe he was expecting some other sort of response. He seemed to examine the water for a bit, as Noah worked at kicking his feet and making his way over to the man. Will pulled her son to him as he got over there and put his little feet on crouched thighs and positioned the board tight against Noah's chest.

"OK, big push off, bud," he said. "See how fast you can get back to Mommy."

"Fast!" Noah told him.

"OK, let's see," Will said, and half pushed, half tossed Noah off his crouched legs back in her direction, giving the boy a little bit of air and then creating a small wake of water around him as he skidded across the top of the water and he started kicking. Noah giggled with delight at the maneuver.

Will just watched as Noah closed the couple metre gap between them both. She knew Noah was going to expect her to do the same thing for him now when he reached her – so she arranged him in the same position and sent him flying back towards Will – more giggles emitting from him. Will smiled as the kid made his way back to him. He glanced at her, as he held out his arms, waiting to grab Noah as he got closer.

"I was still a little wound up about the whole McTeague thing from earlier in the week – but it shouldn't have reached the point that it manifested itself that way," he offered. "I didn't mean to disturb you or Noah's sleep."

She shrugged. "It's OK. He didn't wake up."

He gave a small nod and made a face at Noah – before setting him up to go again.

"Higher, 'Ill," he told the man.

"Higher? I don't know, bud. You have to be pretty brave for higher."

Noah glanced at him. "I brave."

Will snorted and looked at Olivia but from where she was leaning with her back against the side-wall of the pool, she didn't give any protest at the concept of him tossing her son a bit higher into the air – so he did, making a splash with Noah's little body that made him shriek with joy before his sloppy kicking started back to her again.

"I thought you said you didn't have friends," Olivia commented, though, she knew it was kind of obnoxious, while she waited for Noah to get back to her.

Will shook his head again and looked at the water. "You're kind of a piece of work," he said and looked at her. "I wouldn't want to see how you treat the people you get in your interrogation room – if this is how you treat … just people."

She didn't comment on the statement – and diverted her eyes to Noah instead. She thought she was treating him a hell of a lot better than she treated any of her perps.

"Ah, I think I said I didn't have many friends, though," Will said, apparently felt the need to clarify. "And, I don't. And most of the guys I am friends with are married and have kids – so I don't get to see them too often anymore. Except maybe things like a game night every couple months. Or they're like Greg – the guy who answered the door. You know, the kind of guy you'll be shocked, and feel slightly sorry for the level of desperation in the woman, if he does ever get someone to marry him?"

She snorted at that.

"He's harmless," Will said. "In a Zach Galifianakis – in The Hangover, kind of way."

She snorted again at that, as she worked at spinning Noah around in the water, bobbing him up and down.

"Ah – you finally got one of my pop culture references," Will said.

"You actually referred to something that isn't completely obscure and could likely actually be called pop culture," she commented at him.

Will allowed a smile. "Probably sadly disappointing to admit that Greg is my comic guy then."

She looked at him and mouthed, "Your comic guy?"

"He works at a comic shop. He sets aside the good stuff for me when it comes in."

She really had to hold it a laugh at that one and it kind of partially seeped out. "The good stuff?"

"That's funny, eh?" Will said.

She shrugged. "Yeah. It is."

"Mmm," he shook his head again. "Your Mom isn't too nice to me there Noah."

Noah looked at him a little questioningly and pointed at him. "'Ill," he said and looked at his mother.

She nodded. "Yeah, that's Will."

Noah struggled away from her and started paddling towards Will again and the man again put out his arms, waiting to grab her son and make sure he kept afloat.

"So are you staying until close?" he asked.

She was looking at Noah – but glanced at him and shrugged. She looked up at the giant clock on the wall at the end of the pool. There was only about 20 more minutes until the place shutdown anyways.

"I guess maybe at this point," she said.

Will nodded and grabbed Noah and twirled him around through the water as he reached him.

"You know how to do bubbles?" he asked Noah. "Motor boat?"

Her son nodded. "Yes!"

"Yeah? Show me? I bet I can do more."

"NO!" Noah declared and planted his face in the water and started more spitting into it than blowing bubbles.

Will made a chortle sound but put his mouth in the water too and blew some much better bubbles than Noah. Noah started coughing and gagging on the water and Will scooped him up. The choking continued and she saw Noah's face grow red and his eyes look watery, so she closed the gap, actually standing straight out of the water and took him from Will's arms. She saw Will give a bit of a look at her in her bathing suit – or at least what he could see above the water. She told herself it wasn't much more than he would've seen when she'd been standing in front of him in her tank on Friday anyways – and she didn't have anything to be ashamed of. But she still felt slightly awkward and was glad when Noah clutched to her – covering up most of what there was to see anyways.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

She bounced Noah a bit. He'd stopped sputtering. "It's OK. He's fine," she said. "Right, sweets?"

Noah rubbed at his eye a bit and let out another little cough but nodded. She patted his back.

"Ah, I was going to try to get in another 500 metres before close – but if you're still here, I can walk you two home if you want," he offered.

She gave him a look, as she prepared to again shoot down his ridiculous offer. They were fine. But she saw the way he looked – like he expected that – and he again sheepishly kind of looked into the water again.

He shook his head before she could speak, though. "Yeah, I know. You're a cop. You can take care of yourself. It's only a few blocks," he said and shrugged. "But it's going to be dark out when we get out there. I know it's only 7 but … you know…"

She examined him for a moment. "Why'd the McTeague thing piss you off so much?" she asked instead of answering him, though.

He glanced up at her from whatever was so interesting at the bottom of the pool. He ran his hand through his damp and matted hair.

"Ah … you know … I don't really fit into the McTeague dynasty that well. I don't really get them. They don't really get me."

"Your father, though, he talks about you … at the hearings," she said.

Will snorted and finally made eye contact with her. "No, he talks about my dead wife – to make me fit more neatly into the little mythology around our family. You know – our whole family – so deeply affected by 9/11 – such a part of us, such a defining moment for us. And our whole family suffered losses and struggles, but by damn, we rose to the occasion." He shook his head. "I never asked to be talked about. I'd prefer I wasn't."

She watched him, bouncing Noah a bit, who'd given up swimming and was just resting his head against her shoulder, while she bobbed him in the water.

"I think there are a lot of people who appreciate all the work your father has done for the first responder community and those families affected in the Attacks," she told him. "It likely helps them to know he's experienced their struggles in some capacity."

Will shrugged. "I'm sure there are. But – he doesn't know what it's like to lose a wife – or to lose a wife there – and I don't like being used as an example that suggests he somehow does. But … whatever … I don't even grieve properly in my family, Olivia. You see, I don't understand what 9/11 did to this city, to 'our community'. I haven't even let myself mourn, or so my mother tells. So what do I know?"

She examined him some more. She'd gotten the sense previously that he was a black sheep in his family – but now she thought it wasn't just that. He was estranged from them – but apparently still interacting with them. He seemed a little more damaged about the whole thing than she previously thought.

She rubbed her eyebrow and then just shrugged. She didn't know what to say. After-all, what did she know about any of it either. She didn't have a family to deal with family politics. And, though she knew people who'd died in the Towers – none of them had even been close friends, let alone a spouse. She didn't think she could offer anything that would make things better – between them or even just for him.

"Ah, I'm going to start to get him changed," she said. "But I guess we'll wait for you in the lobby – whenever you're done your lengths."

He gave her a little nod – but he'd gone back to looking at the bottom of the pool and was still bobbing there when she glanced back at him after she got Noah out of the pool and adjusted the rear of her suit from riding up her ass. It seemed like all suits were purposely designed to do that for some reason – no matter how modest or Mommy-like you bought them. At least he wasn't looking at her – but she also didn't think he was going to manage to get in those extra 500 metres.


	15. Chapter 15

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt like they were walking the five blocks back to their condo building at about as slow as the possibly could go. It almost felt like freshman year at high school – with that boy you really like, but you're supposed to be home at a certain time and you don't really have anywhere to go anyways but don't want separate yet, so you move at a snail's pace just to make the walk last that much longer.

It was kind of ridiculous because she kind of thought she did want the conversation to end and to just get home and start getting Noah to bed. But Will had seemed pretty deflated when she'd left him in the pool. He'd managed to paint a small smile on his face again by the time he met them in the lobby of the community centre. Still, she could see that there was a lot stirring underneath the exterior again. He had a look similar to when he'd run away from them during their Saturday walk back on that first weekend after they'd moved in. He wasn't running this time, though – and she was trying to be polite, since he seemed to have indicated repeatedly that it wasn't one of her stronger skill sets. Beyond that, Noah seemed to be loving the pace – and the fact that she'd let him out of the stroller but that they were going slow enough he could hop back into it himself and get out – without it having hardly moved.

She didn't know what they were really talking about. He explained to her what Settlers of Catan was more. She thought it sounded like a pretty confusing and rather boring game. She mostly just let him talk really. She never really felt like she had much to say with him. He was sort of interesting to listen to, though. He just talked about things so different and outside of the realm of her usual conversations at work. It was a change of pace.

"So are you following the Knicks this season?" he finally asked her – maybe having gotten sick of his own voice.

She shrugged. "Yeah, I've watched some of the games. I don't think my fan level is quite the same as yours. Given the choice of the Knicks or …"

"Grey's Anatomy?" he suggested.

She looked at him and laughed. Actually laughed.

"What? You aren't on the Dr. McDreamy bandwagon?"

She shook her head and shrugged.

"That's a non-answer."

"I work in a squad room full of men – watching something like that is not something I will ever admit to."

Will examined her. "So you watch it – but you don't admit it?"

She just shrugged again.

"Mmm," he said with this almost sly grin on his face. "I had these three female TAs last year. I heard lots about Grey's Anatomy."

"And then you fired them this year?"

He snorted and glanced at her. "Well, that might be discrimination."

She gave him a small smile.

"Ah, actually one of them I'm supervising her PhD work now – another decided she's too good for NYU and took her ass over to MIT for her grad work. And, the third was just kind of a lazy ass – so, she's not around anymore. I let some other poor schmucks fall for her resume this semester. But I've got two more young ladies to keep me up-to-date on all the must-see-tv for the vagina population."

"The vagina population?" she mouthed back at him. She couldn't decide if the comment disgusted her slightly or amused her. It sounded funny coming out of his mouth.

"The women-folk?" he suggested instead.

"Ah. Because men have much better taste in television."

He shrugged. "Nah. Most television is crap. That's why I have the sports package."

She snorted again. "Well, I think that's going to be pretty crap all-around this season too. Things aren't looking good for the Knicks, the Giants or the Rangers."

"You could always cheer for the Nets, Jets and Islanders instead."

"Pft," was all she gave in response to that.

He gave her a smile. "You do know your sports."

"I work at the boys' club," she clarified again.

"You could cheer for Boston," he suggested.

She shook her head at him. "Well, now you're just being ridiculous."

"Ah, com'on, you know the Sox and the Bruins have us beat."

"That doesn't mean I should start rooting them on."

He shrugged. "Just a suggestion. If you want to get on-board with some winning teams."

"That might be career suicide," she offered.

He let out a small laugh at that.

They were quiet again for a moment and Noah decided to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and examine Will. Will just grabbed his hands and bounced him up and down a couple times and then pulled him up to his hip. He glanced at her. "This OK?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. May help us get home faster."

He looked at Noah. "You getting tired there, bud?"

Noah's only response was to put his head on Will's shoulder. It kind of hurt Liv's heart a bit. He only did that to her. She'd never seen him do it to anyone else before – even Elliot. "Story-time?" Noah asked.

She rubbed her son's back. "When we get home, sweets. We'll do story and get you to bed."

"Mommy – Wild Things," Noah told her.

She smiled. "Yeah, we can do Wild Things, again, tonight."

Will smiled. "Geez, that book has been around forever. We had that in the house when I was growing up."

She nodded. "I don't really get the appeal. He seems to love the pictures, though."

"Did you hear that there's a Spike Jonez movie of it coming out? Some time early in the New Year, I think."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Have you seen the trailer? It looks fantastic – set to an Arcade Fire song," he sounded way too excited about it. She wasn't sure if he was excited by the movie, the fact it was a Spike Jonze movie, the trailer or Arcade Fire. But she did think there were a few things on that list that might actually make him relatable.

She gave him a small smile. "Ah, I couldn't tell you the last time I've been to a movie to see any sort of trailers."

He gave her a look. "Really?"

She nodded at her son, who he was still carrying, and who still seemed perfectly at ease in Will's arms.

"Ah, yeah," Will said, sounding like he felt slightly silly for having not realized that. "We should go to a movie some time then."

She snorted. "You might want to keep working on establishing a friendship before you start making suggestions that sound like dates."

Will clearly shook his head and rolled his eyes at her. "I'm pretty sure that friends go to movies too. And, if we went to a movie that appealed to a two-year-old, I really don't think it would ever fall into my realm of date material. Or do movies generally fall into the fun realm that you seem so opposed to?"

She glanced at him and shrugged. "I like movies." She did like movies. She kind of doubted they liked the same kind of movies, though.

He nodded. "OK. Then – sometime – after you've decided that I might be OK friend material and not just annoying neighbour material – maybe we can catch a movie."

She eyed him for a moment and just shrugged again. "Maybe," she allowed. She didn't see the point in disagreeing and turning it into some sort of discussion that would likely result in saying something that would hurt him or disappoint him again.

She saw him examining her a bit out of the corner of her eye – like he was really taking her in and considering her or something he wanted to say, so she glanced his way again.

"So what's your list of friendship requirements? It seems like it must be pretty stringent."

She snorted and shook her head at him. "I don't have a list."

"So I just don't meet the undefined requirements?"

She rolled her eyes. "OK, knowing someone for longer than two months is a good start."

"You have to start somewhere. We all have day ones," he said.

She eyed him again. "That's very philosophical of you, Will."

He smiled. "Mmm, said it, did I. Always in motion is the future," he said in an absurd voice.

She made a face and shook her head more. "Now I have no idea what you just said."

He stopped walking and threw up his one free hand. "Yoda? You didn't get Yoda out of that?"

She looked at him. "The little green alien thing?"

He made a silent laugh and looked at the ground and shook his head and shrugged. "Yeah, 'the little green alien thing'. Star Wars."

She shrugged.

"Please tell me you've seen Star Wars?"

She nodded as they started again. "Yeah. Sure. When I was a kid."

"You have a son. You better learn to like Star Wars," Will commented.

She glanced at him again and eyed Noah – who now looked like he was sleeping. "He's two. He doesn't need to like Star Wars."

"I'll have to introduce him to Star Wars. That's as important to growing up as peanut butter and jelly."

"I think he'll be able to navigate his childhood without exposure to either of those things."

"What? You don't do peanut butter and jelly? And you don't do pizza? Are you some sort of health nut?"

"This coming from the man I've now encountered jogging and swimming?"

Will looked at her. "I'm not a health nut."

"An exercise nut?"

He snorted. "Not really."

She glanced at him. "You looked very … fit at the pool. Not that you can tell now. I think you might want to consider buying some clothes that are a different size."

He glanced at his baggy attire. He was in jeans and a hoodie – that, as with most everything else she'd seen him in, looked like it was all about two sizes too big for him.

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

"We've left the pool and you're swimming in them."

He shrugged. "I like them this way."

"You look like you stole them from an obese homeless person," she commented. She kind of thought if someone in his life hadn't told him that yet – maybe someone should. A friend would tell you that, right? And he wanted to be friends.

"Are homeless people really obese?"

She snorted and shook her head at him.

"Anyways … I do triathlon," he said. "I train most of the year."

She examined him again but must've had some sort of look on her face.

"Is that so unbelievable?" he asked.

She shook her head and shrugged. "It's just an interesting combination."

"What is?"

"Triathlon. Math professor. Comic geek."

"Ah."

"But you aren't a health nut or exercise nut?" she asked but it came out as more of a sarcastic statement.

"No. I'm a bit of a control freak, though."

She snorted. "Well, that's lovely to know now. It's at this point, I ask you to return my son to his stroller – and be on your way."

He stopped a looked at her. "Are you serious?"

She shrugged. "No. Not right now."

He considered it. "I don't think I meant it the way you took it."

She examined his face again – it had fallen. "How did you mean it?"

He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand – pushing the damp hair he clearly hadn't taken the time to dry further back. "Ah … just that it's something you can control. You know … what you put into your body, how much you train, how far you push your body. It's all variables you can control in a world around you that's chaotic."

She watched him for a moment and then just started to walk again – not giving further comment. What he'd said – he clearly meant that it was a coping mechanism for him. She wasn't going to rip at that band-aid anymore. She'd seen how defeated he'd looked in the pool when his dead wife had been brought up – though by his own accord then. Still, she wasn't going to wade into that territory again.

Out of the corner her eye, she saw him adjust Noah, trying to transfer him to his opposite arm without disturbing him too much.

"You can put him back in the stroller," she said. "I'm not going to run away from you. Right now – anyways."

He looked at her almost like he didn't believe that statement. But did return her son to the stroller and even fastened the belt around his waist. Noah was completely passed out. She wondered if she'd be able to manage getting him home and into bed without having him wake up and wanting to go crazy on a second-wind.

"You must have to do some sort of exercise or training with being a cop," he said as more of a statement than a question.

She nodded. "Yeah," she acknowledged as they started walking again.

"So what do you do?"

She glanced at him. "Jog. Free weights. Kickboxing. Some spinning. I used to do some other stuff – but it's kind of as time allows now. So you know … what I can fit in when I manage to get a lunch break or if I get off shift at a decent time and can manage an hour before having to grab him from daycare."

"All a juggling act, eh?"

She shrugged. "Seems to be what being a single mom is."

"Does his dad have him any weeknights or weekends to give you some you-time?" he asked.

She glanced at him and thought for a moment on how to answer and if she was even going to. But she found herself allowing, "No. His father isn't involved." She wasn't sure she meant for it to come out.

"That sucks," Will said and eyed her a bit more.

She snorted at that, though, and just glanced at him again without comment.

"So that guy … who's kind of around your place … he's not Noah's dad?"

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow in question. "That statement just made you sound a bit like a stalker."

He shrugged. "I'm your neighbour. I see things. I hear things. We share a wall and a hallway – and an elevator and lobby. I've seen him coming and going. The guy who helped you move in? He why you not looking for a relationship?"

She laughed at that as she realized who and what he was talking about. "Ah, no. I'm not looking for a relationship – because I'm kind of busy and don't really have the time or interest right now, Will."

"So then who's the guy?"

She smiled and shook her head some more. "A friend."

"Ah. What'd he do that's so special that he gets to be on the super exclusive friend list?"

She snorted and rubbed her eyebrow. "Hmm. Well, I've known him a lot longer than two months. As a start"

"Ah – but you had a day one with him too," Will said.

She shook her head at him. "Yeah. I did. He's my partner, Will."

"Your partner?" he seemed confused.

"At work. My partner. Elliot."

That seemed to take a moment to sink in. "Oh," he said. It sounded like he felt foolish again and he looked a little embarrassed. He'd stopped walking and took a few quick steps to catch up with her. "That's a long time to be partnered with someone, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "We're a small squad – there's only so many options. But, yeah, it is. Longest relationship I've had with a man."

She meant it as a joke – but she saw the look Will gave her, almost confusion again but almost like he felt sorry for her too.

They both fell quiet for a while – but again, she could see Will repeatedly glancing at her. When he wasn't looking at her, he seemed to be looking at his feet, like he was lost in thought.

"What are you doing on the Thanksgiving weekend?" he finally asked out of nowhere.

She sighed, feeling a pending invitation, and shrugged. "I really don't plan my life that far in advance," she said with an edge of annoyance in her voice – as an attempt to deter him from pushing it further.

"You don't plan ahead for holiday weekends?" he said in almost disbelief.

She glanced at him. "OK. In all honesty – this is the first Thanksgiving weekend I'm scheduled to have off in a very long time. So I haven't really decided what I'm going to do with the time."

"You usually work Thanksgiving?"

She shrugged. "The some of the other guys in my squad have families or things going on. Plans. I don't usually. I so previously volunteered to work it."

"Well that was nice of you," he commented, "but doesn't that mean you and Noah should have extra exciting plans for this year?"

She looked at him. "I don't know, does it?"

"Are you going to cook something?"

"For the two of us to eat – when he barely eats? No. I don't think so."

"Are you going to go to the parade?"

"Watching it on TV sounds much more comfortable to me."

"Wow. Stick-in-the-mud. That's like part of what being a kid growing up in New York is all about. You have to take him to the parade – or at least to Macy's to see Santa."

"Maybe when he's older. Sounds long and cold and crowded and generally torturous with a two-year-old to me."

"Well do you do the Black Friday shopping thing?"

"With a two-year-old?"

"Well I didn't mean like mad rushing the doors at 4 a.m. or anything like that," he said.

She shook her head. "I don't really have anyone to buy for."

"Noah," Will suggested.

She nodded. "Yeah. But I'll deal with that closer to Christmas."

"He's in like prime Christmas Magic period now. Old enough to get it," Will said.

"Yeah, a couple people have said that he should be fun this year," she agreed.

The truth was she thought that Christmas could only be so fun when it was just the two of them. She tried to make the holidays something for Noah – and she had been having some fun with it since he'd been born. She'd long ago stopped doing anything just for herself. She'd started with a tree again when he was born and had got him a stocking, put on some music as it got closer to the day. But at the same time, she also found it a little sad and a little lonely – if not a little empty in a way. She thought maybe it'd get better now, or at least easier, now that Noah was getting a bit older and a bit more actively able to participate and engage in Christmas and Easter and things like that.

She'd dressed him up and had him into the precinct this year on Halloween and took him to a few doors in their neighbourhood. It'd been sort of fun. At least it'd been fun to dress Noah up and take some pictures. She wasn't quite sure he really grasped the concept of what they were doing, though. He did like getting to demand "Give me candy," though, which didn't make him the most gracious trick-or-treater and had been slightly embarrassing for her. And, in the end, she'd only let him have a few of the treats he got before taking the rest into the squad the next day. It'd all disappeared in short order.

"My one brother's kids are still in prime Christmas Magic stage. They're pretty fun to watch," he offered. "Though his oldest is busy trying to ruin it for the younger ones – so we'll see how this year goes. It will suck if the three-year-old's bubble gets burst so young."

She gave him a small smile – wondering a bit if she'd allowed a cloud to pass over her face with his previous comment.

Will rubbed at his forehead again. "My family does the Thanksgiving thing," he said. "I'll likely be spending part of the weekend out there. I'm kind of trying to weasel my way out of the actual Thanksgiving Day brouhaha, though."

"Why?" she asked, though she suspected on their previous conversation, that he just didn't like spending time with his family.

He shrugged. "Ah, I guess I just don't feel like picking the grass from between my teeth for weeks after my brothers grind my face into the football pitch this year."

She snorted and gave him a smile.

"And who wants to deal with having to clean that many dishes?"

"The dishwasher?"

"I am the dishwasher," he said.

She allowed a small laugh at that and gave him another small smile.

He rubbed at his forehead some more. "Ah, I wouldn't inflict Thanksgiving at my parents' on anyone. But my family kind of does this thing … they have a cook-out every weekend and always wrap it up for the season the Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend, if you wanted to say you had some plans for your weekend or something…"

She looked at him and shook her head. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why not? Then you could get to say you've been to a McTeague event," he said with nearly mock enthusiasm.

"Oh well, after you've given such a raving review of your family tonight, that sounds really appealing …" she said with some sarcasm.

He stopped and looked down at the ground, so she stopped too. She kind of hated that she was at least disappointing him again – if not all out hurting him.

"It's not like a big thing. It's never an event. It'd really just be my family. It just sounds like … you don't really have a family and that no one's invited you over for dinner or anything yet," Will said almost so quietly she had to strain to hear him.

She sighed. "Will, I'm really fine. Noah and I are pretty good at being self-sufficient and entertaining ourselves. We'll do something – eat something."

He nodded. "I know. I just meant … it could be fun. Or at least you'd get to take Noah on the ferry. That'd be fun, right?"

She gave him a small smile. "Will, you really didn't make it sound like your interactions with your family are that much fun – and I'm not sure you adding a female friend to the mix would do much to help that situation for you."

He sighed and shrugged. "You don't have to worry about that. That's not … the way they are or the kind of assumptions that they'd be making."

"OK, Will, well, introducing me to your family when we're still barely stepping beyond the neighbour realm here is moving a little fast to me. I'd have to be in a pretty serious relationship with a man for quite a while before I'd even consider submitting myself to the parental inspection … so …"

He shook his head more and shrugged more. "I guess maybe that's where your research into my family has kind of failed or whatever. They're pretty welcoming and caring people … my parents. My relationship with them might be … what it is. But I'm their son. It's different for other people. And, it wouldn't be like … whatever you are thinking. I'd make sure they knew you were a friend, my neighbour. That's all. But whatever. Think about it. It's still a few weeks away."

"I don't think I need to think about it Will," she said.

He shrugged. "Think about it. No rush. You two don't have to spend the whole holiday alone, if you don't want to."

"We live in New York – we're never alone."

He made strong eye-contact with her. "That's not how I feel about this city. It can be a pretty fucking lonely place, Olivia."


	16. Chapter 16

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey, George," she called after him.

She felt slightly silly. When she'd seen him leaving the squad room and then getting on the elevator, she'd actually taken that as her cue to grab her jacket and call it a day too. She'd hardly even taken the time to say 'night' to Elliot, who'd looked at her like she was a bit of a crazy person with how quickly she was suddenly departing.

She hadn't bothered to wait to for the elevator and trotted down the stairs in the hopes of catching up to him on the street before she wasn't able to spot him again. He'd barely gotten out the doors, though, when she managed to get outside too and see him.

The FBI psychologist glanced back at her and stopped, waiting for her to catch up. "Following me?" he half-ways teased.

She gave a bit of an embarrassed half-smile. "Sort of. I've kind of been wanting to pick your brain but it's not work related – so I didn't really want to do it upstairs."

He gave her a bit of a questioning look. "OK…" he said slowly.

"Are you headed for the subway?" she asked and gestured in the general direction. He gave her a nod. "Is it OK if I walk with you? I'm headed that way too – Noah's daycare."

He gave her another small smile and nod – and started walking again. "How's Noah doing these days?" he asked innocently enough. She wasn't even sure when the last time George would've seen Noah might've been, months – probably closer to a year. Though, she did occasionally chatter at him about her son, if they were at the coffee cart at the same time and managed not to have a case to talk about. So – she supposed – really not that often.

She sort of shrugged, though. "He's good," she said, "but I guess he's kind of what I wanted to pick your brain about."

He gave her a questioning look. "I'm not exactly an expert on little boys," he said. "Unless you've got concerns about him already showing signs of sociopathy?"

She gave him almost a horrified look. "You can start to diagnosis a sociopath at two?"

He gave her a small smile and shook his head. "No," he said softly. "What's wrong with Noah?"

She gave a small sigh – and stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts. "I guess, what age do kids start … seeking out role models outside of the home … in a single parent home?"

He looked at her more questioningly. "A role model? At two? Behaviour modeling, yes. But I think I'd probably need a bit more context to give you the kind of insight you might be looking for."

She rubbed her eyebrow and thought a bit more – about exactly how much she wanted to say or reveal to the man. She thought of him as a bit of a friend – trustworthy enough, she liked talking to him and felt comfortable talking with him and joking around with him about issues beyond the work realm. But still – depending on how she phrased and approached this, she might end up wading further into personal territory than she really wanted.

"Ah, we moved … I guess it's pushing three months ago now. Our new neighbour – a single guy … Noah's taken quite the shinning to him."

George examined her a little bit. She could tell he wanted more information still.

She shrugged and shook her head. "He just seems … to light up when we encounter him. None of his playing shy. He seems … so comfortable around him. Ah … will play with him. We were on a walk with him a while ago and Noah gestured to him that he wanted to picked up, which is strange enough for him, but then after Will did, Noah put his head on his shoulder. I've just … never seen him do anything like that with anyone else before."

George gave a small nod and looked at her a bit more. "Are you spending a lot of time with the guy?"

She shook her head and rubbed her eyebrow again. "Not really. We see him near daily, though – in the hallway or on the elevator. He chats at us. He's friendly. We usually end up walking to or from the metro station together a couple times a week. We've encountered him around the neighbourhood … coffee shop, bottega, pool. So, we've spent a bit of time with him. But all … very casual, nothing too far outside of the neighbourly realm."

George gave a small shrug. "Well, in a two-parent home, a nuclear family, generally it's very normal for a male child to be extremely attached to his mother for the first months of life – and then somewhere around 18 to 30 months, it clicks that 'Hey, Daddy's a boy like me' and they become much more clingy to the father and start doing more behaviour-modeling of the males in their life."

"So he doesn't have a father and has already realized that and is … picking out some random person to fill that void for himself?"

George gave a small shrugged.

She sighed. "Well, I thought I'd have a few more years of padding before I had to deal that outwardly with absentee-father issues with him."

"He's not likely relating it to an absentee father, Liv," George offered. "That's a little advanced for the psychology of a child his age. It's likely more … 'Here's another boy'."

"It just … feels like … it's something he needs or that he must feel like he's been missing it on some level. It makes me feel like … I've done something wrong or denied him the opportunity to have that."

"Liv, you've made sure he has men in his life and he's only two. A lot of single mothers wouldn't be as conscious about that as you've been already," he tried to assure her.

She shook her head. "His interactions with Will are different, though. Noah has known Elliot his whole life and Elliot is good to him, good with him … and Noah's never shown this kind of affection or even level of comfort with Elliot."

"It's making you uncomfortable?" George asked, but it was a statement of the obvious.

"Yeah," she nearly spat out – because it was obvious.

It did make her uncomfortable. She didn't understand where it was coming from in Noah. It made her feel like she'd been doing something wrong or had been denying her son something he needed. It made her wonder what he was seeing. It made her question Will's intentions. It made her wonder if the man was even aware of the impact he was having on her son.

She didn't really know how to deal with it. She didn't want to rip it away from her son – but it also seemed like a strange and imbalanced relationship.

She looked at George for a moment and sighed. "If I were in a relationship – I wouldn't even introduce Noah to the guy unless it was something that had been going on for a while and it was pretty serious – stable – and here … it's just some random guy and Noah's gotten … attached to him already and we hardly know him … we hardly see him."

"So you're worried about him getting hurt?"

"I don't think Will even realizes what is going on," she sighed.

"Can you talk to him?"

She shook her head and shrugged.

"He's you're son. You're allowed to set up boundaries. Maybe this man … Will? … doesn't realize what's going on or that it's abnormal behaviour for Noah. He'd hopefully be respectful of any requests you put to him – if you asked him to give your son space," George said. "If he realized Noah's getting attached and it's abnormal behaviour for him – it might send him running in the opposite direction and giving you guys lots of space. I'd say that would be pretty normal male behaviour."

She snorted. "Then likely not Will behaviour."

George looked at her again. "Who is this guy, Liv?"

She shrugged. "Just my neighbour."

He looked at her again. "Just your neighbour?"

She made the eye contact. "Just my neighbour," she said sternly.

He gave her a small smile and shrugged.

"You know, Liv, part of taking care of Noah is taking care of yourself," George said. "Just because you have a son now – doesn't mean you have to stop having a life."

She let out an audible sigh that included an apparent sound of frustration. "We aren't having this conversation, George. Don't shrink me."

He gave her a little smile. "You were asking for it."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I'm not interested in him," she said. "Period. He's just my neighbour."

"Why?"

"Why is he my neighbour? Because he was living next door when we moved in," she said with a bit of a smart-ass tone. She knew that wasn't what he was asking.

"Why aren't you interested in him, Olivia? I don't have much to go on – but my impression is that he's likely interested in you. If not, you probably do have more reason to be concerned about the interest he's taking in your son."

She gave him a small glare. "He's not like that. I've looked into him. He's a nice enough guy. The only thing I'm concerned about with him – is him inadvertently hurting Noah and having to deal with a heart-broken little boy who apparently already has Daddy issues."

"I don't think he has Daddy issues, Liv," George sighed again. "Him establishing positive male role models is likely a good sign – not a bad one."

She was quiet for a few moments and thought about what he'd said. They were almost to the subway stairs. She knew they'd be parting ways soon. It might be a while before she saw him again – and even when she did, who knew if she'd get the chance to talk to him privately, or if she'd even convince herself it was a good idea ever again.

"What do you know about widowers?" she asked him, looking more at the ground than him.

She felt George examining her. "Will's a widower?"

She shrugged. "Yeah."

"Older man?"

She shook her head and gave a thin smile. "Nope. Mid-ish-30s. Younger than me."

He gave a small smile. "Still hurting about that birthday?"

She gave a small snort and looked at the ground again.

George put his hands in his pockets and looked at her some more. "Well, it might explain some of his interactions towards you and Noah. Maybe. You'd have to give me more context if you really wanted an opinion on that. Widowers can be a bit of a hot potato, Liv. How they interact with the loss is different than women – just like most things. Some times how they deal with it … isn't that healthy, depending on the person. It would depend on him. Probably would depend on what stage of grief he's at too. How long she's been gone. How she died. It's individual."

She gave a small nod and considered that. "He's still hurting," she said quietly. "That much is pretty clear."

George gave her a thin and sad smile, and a little nod. "Do you know how long it's been? Or how she died?"

Her head bobbed a bit and she looked at him. "Sept. 11th."

George just gave her this look of almost more regret and shook his head almost in sympathy. "Liv …" he trailed off.

She just shook her head and shrugged. "Yeah, I know …"

They were standing above the subway entrance at that point – and seemed to just stand there both examining the ground for far too long and uncomfortable of silence.

"He's a nice enough guy," she said quietly.

George looked up at her again. "Just your neighbour?"

She gave a small snort. "Just my neighbour," she nodded and allowed a small smile.

He shrugged. "Sounds like that might be best."

"You've done some 9/11 counseling and psych reviews for the first responder community since then, right?"

He gave her a nod.

"Go to any of the hearings about any of the disability packages or any of the legislation?"

He shrugged. "Some."

She rubbed at her eyebrow again and examined the ground. "Have you had any interactions with Ted McTeague?"

George shrugged again while he examined her and she could tell he was weighing the content of her question again. "From the UFA? Not one-on-one, but he seems be at all of them."

She looked at him. "What's he like?"

He seemed to dig his hands into his pockets deeper at that question but gave a small shrug of the one shoulder and a little shake of the head. "I guess he's about what you'd expect from someone who's spent his whole life in the fire service. He's a little gruff. He seems very passionate, though. He's well-spoken but uses very simple and to-the-point language. He's a commanding presence."

She gave a small nod at that.

"He apparently has a son named Will," George said and looked at her hard.

She gave another small nod and raised an eyebrow at him. "Apparently he does. And Tom and Rob. I'm told."

George sighed and crossed his arms a bit looked at her again. "Well what's he like?"

She snorted and shook her head. "Weird."

George let out a little laugh at that and gave her a small smile. "Outside of him apparently continuing to be friendly to you and Noah while I'm sure you're making it clear that that's unwelcome – weird how?"

She rubbed her eyebrow again. "How's this for a trifecta? … math professor, triathlon, comic books."

George gave her another smile – a bit bigger this time. "At least it sounds like he has some substance to him."

She snorted out a small laugh. "He has a 'comic guy', George."

George laughed a little at that and looked at the ground. "Comics are a big thing, Liv. I'm sure it's a completely normal … healthy … hobby."

"For a grown man? You know how many comic pervs I've dealt with over the years?"

"But you said you don't think he's a perv – or anything else beyond your friendly neighbour for that matter," he told her pointedly.

She seemed to consider that again for a moment and George again watched her.

"There's a reason that all the super hero movies are Hollywood blockbusters, Liv," he told her. "Men liking comics isn't that abnormal, if that's the worse thing you've got about him so far."

"What about playing boardgames and being able to quote Star Wars?"

George snorted and smiled wider at her. "It sounds like he has a lot of interests that could make him very attractive to say … a little boy without a father. And, that probably if you gave … Will … a talking-to to make sure he was aware of the situation and that his intentions were in the right places and that he knew what your boundaries where for him with Noah … you could be giving your son an entertaining friend and probably an OK male role model."

"A very geeky role model," she interjected.

"I'm sure Elliot can help balance it out with the angry, brooding male role model," he said.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "He's not that bad. Elliot's raised four children and is working on number five. He knows how to do the father-figure thing – how to be a father."

George gave a small nod. "He does. But he doesn't see or interact with Noah on a daily basis, does he?"

She sighed a rubbed her eyebrow some more examining the ground again.

"We're all geeks, Olivia, in our own ways, don't write him off because of comic books and Star Wars – if he really is an OK guy – for Noah or for you ..."

She pointed at him. "Just my neighbour," she said sternly again.

"Just your neighbour," he agreed but pulled back his lips in an almost disapproving way.

"Seriously, George," she said. "I've already told him that I'm not looking for a relationship. I'm not stringing him along. He says he isn't looking for a relationship either."

George gave her another nod. "OK. But with single mothers and with widowers there tends to be lots of flexibility in that grey-area before there's a relationship too."

She made another frustrated sound and looked at the sky for a moment. "We aren't in a grey-area. I am NOT sleeping with him. I will NOT be sleeping with him. He's a fucking 9/11 widower, George. Damaged goods. I've got enough bullshit in my life."

He nodded and put his arms back in his pockets. "OK. I'm just suggesting that if you are going to let him into Noah's life – you're letting him into your life too – and you probably are going to want to keep checking in to make sure everyone's intentions are still in the same place. Or at least in a place that everyone is comfortable with – so no one gets hurt. All three of you are a little vulnerable, Liv, and probably slightly damaged."

She snorted and shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Well, thanks."

"That's what you get when you ask for a free session," he told her with a small grin.

She rolled her eyes at him again.

"You know there's full websites and lots of books on dating and dealing with geeks," he told her teasingly.

She let out a small laugh and shook her head at him. "And how do you know that?"

He shrugged. "They say after you go geek, you won't be going back."

"Mmm," she said and rolled her eyes. "Because they've corrupted you by the time you escape it – and destroyed your chances of seeming dateable to anyone else in the future."

He snorted at that. "I think it's more that they tend to be a little awkward and shy – but most of them aren't assholes."

She laughed out loud at that – and shook her head some more and examined the ground, still snorting a bit at that.

"He invited us to spend part of the Thanksgiving weekend with his family," she offered as she managed to get by the asshole comment, though she could tell from the way George was looking at her, he might've wanted a bigger explanation about what exactly was so funny about that.

"Taking him up on it?" he asked innocently enough.

She shrugged. "I told him no. But we don't have anything else to do."

George gave a small nod. "No invite from Elliot?"

She snorted and shook her head. "Elliot? Invite me over to dinner with his family? There's been enough grumblings about the in-laws, that I think that's where they're headed anyways – if that idea even occurred to him."

George allowed a thin smile. "I'd offer – but I know you're taking a break from all things fabulous," he said a little sarcastically.

"Carter invited you to his family's?"

He gave her a smile. "Not exactly. Just a dinner with a group of people who don't feel like spending the holiday with family."

She allowed a small nod.

"I don't think it would be what you'd be looking for, though," he offered, realizing he may have painted it as something that fit her needs.

She gave him a smile. "No, I understand." She shook her head. "Sometimes at the holidays … I just end up feeling like I'm doing it wrong with Noah – that he's missing out somehow. Not having grandparents to take him to or aunts or uncles or cousins. Some of the holidays just end up feeling kind of empty. It makes me sad for him. I remember what that was like growing up."

He shrugged. "You could always take Will up on his offer."

She shook her head. "It's too soon. I hardly know him. It'd be weird. Assumptions would be made. Awkward."

George just shrugged at again. "It's all checks and balances. Sacrifice something to get something."

She sighed. "Yeah. Anyways … I'll let you get your train. Thanks," she said softly, she didn't say thanks often. She wasn't very good at it.

He gave her a little smile. "Good luck," he offered.

She snorted. "Yeah," she said, but then pointed at him. "Not a word about any of this to anyone, Little Man."

He smiled a little wider and crossed his heart. She rolled her eyes at him but allowed a smile.

"Have a good night, Liv," he said and gave her another little smile before heading down the steps to the subway.

She watched him go and let out another small sigh before looking up and orienting herself a bit and heading towards Noah's daycare again. She wasn't sure if her talk with Huang had helped or not.


	17. Chapter 17

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She kept looking at the tickets in her hand and the envelope with the hand-written note scribbled across it while she listened to the phone ringing on the opposite end of the line. She was starting to think he wasn't going to pick up.

"Thought you might want to start making some good ol' New York City holiday traditions with the kiddo. Happy Thanksgiving. Will," was what was written on the letter-sized envelope that she'd found shoved under her door in the morning when she'd headed into the kitchen to start the coffee. She'd opened it and found two tickets for the next day - a Thanksgiving afternoon performance of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

She'd stood looking at them for quite a while – confused, angry, almost touched and just not knowing what the hell she was supposed to be doing with them, or what it was supposed to mean, or what the fuck was with her neighbour. She'd eventually managed to at least pick up her phone and find his number in her contacts from when she'd let him watch Noah for her the one night. She couldn't accept the tickets. It was ridiculous. Will was completely ridiculous.

"Hello," he finally said, answering the phone after so many rings that it probably almost had gone to voicemail. It was clear he didn't have her programmed into his caller ID – or he hadn't looked at it. There was no recognition in his voice at all.

"You're putting things under my door now?" she said, not giving him the courtesy of saying who was on the other end of the line. She figured he'd sort it out.

But there was a pause – like maybe he did have to think about it. Maybe he regularly shoved envelopes under people's doors, she thought, taking creepy levels further.

"Oh, hey," he eventually said. "Good morning to you too."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at where Noah was lining up his dinosaurs along the table – completely ignoring the strawberry jam toast and the handful of dry Cheerios she'd put in front of him. Though he did take a break from the toys and took a swig of the milk she'd poured into his sippy cup.

"Are you next door?" she asked.

She heard some rustling. "Nah. I'm at my office. Getting some shit done before heading out to the folks. Hosting some really high-demand office hours. Got the kids rolling in."

"Well, I can't accept these," she told him.

He snorted into the phone and there was some more rustling. "Whatever. They're faculty tickets, Olivia. We get blocks of discounted tickets all the time. It was like twenty-five bucks total. Give them to someone at work today if you don't want them."

She rubbed at her face some more and thought about that – picking up the tickets off the counter again and looking at them.

"To pay me back, you can buy the pizza you won't eat for the next Knicks game you won't let me watch with you," Will said into her ear, apparently feeling the need to fill the silence.

She snorted and shook her head even though she knew he couldn't see it. "You're so fucking persistent," she said a little bit more quietly, glancing back at Noah again.

"You're so fucking resistant," he told her. "To what, I'm still not exactly sure."

"Will…"

"You know – I would've been nice – polite - to whoever moved in next to me," he offered. "It's just a bonus that you aren't some 70-year-old grandma."

"You'd give Grandma tickets to the Rockettes?"

"Sure, and she and her prissy friend would get all dressed up, toddler over to the show, thank me kindly for it," he said. "Fact: a new 70-year-old neighbour would be a lot easier to impress than you. She'd probably think I was about the sweetest thing on Earth at this point."

She snorted again at that. It was quiet for a moment.

"So have you ever been to the show?" he asked.

She shrugged and then realized he couldn't see. "No," she finally offered out loud.

He made some sort of mock-gasping sound. "And you claim to have grown-up in New York?"

"And I suppose your family went every year?" she said rather snarkily back.

"Nah," he said and rustled some more in her ear.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

"Mmm," he said. "Sorry. I'm got a transcript in front of me from a colleague who thinks he doesn't need to actually write articles for an academic journal – just attach charts and charts of data. Even I think it's boring. But, anyways … my Mom dragged us a few times when we were kids – not every year. Boys. Since being at NYU, though, with the cheap tickets, I usually pick up a batch for the nieces and nephews and give them and the sister-in-laws an afternoon in the city."

"So this is a forced meeting with your family?" she said and glanced back at the tickets again with some disgust.

"Oh, no," Will sputtered. "No, no. I take them closer to Christmas. No worries."

She nodded again and looked at them a bit softer and fingered at them again.

"I think Noah's still a little young for this," she commented.

Will snorted into her ear again. "No way. He's prime age. He'll love it. There will be kids a hell of a lot younger than him there. Don't worry about that. You should go. Have some fun. Start a tradition or something. What else do you have to do anyways?"

She knew he didn't really mean anything by it – other then trying to convince her to just accept his gesture. But it still kind of stung.

She still had no plans for the holiday weekend. She thought she might use the days off to do some laundry and get some cleaning done. Maybe she'd do some cooking – but stuff to freeze and use as quick meals over the coming weeks, not some Thanksgiving feast. Other then that she thought her and Noah would go for a couple walks – give him some park time. Maybe she'd see if they could find a bookstore or something. That could be their tradition – she'd buy him a new picture book and try to mix up story-time a bit, because their current repertoire was putting her to sleep more than it appeared to be him.

"I have big plans," she told him sarcastically, though.

She knew he'd be asking her again about if she was going to go with him on Saturday. He'd asked multiple times already in the past couple weeks. Not every time they saw him – but often enough.

Things had gotten a bit more comfortable between them, though. She was at least trying to be friendlier in the elevator – to say hello and not just grunt at him when he asked if her day was OK. They'd shared another Saturday morning coffee and newspapers and another walk.

They'd seen each other in the pool again on the following Sunday – even though she'd thought about not taking Noah again at that time because she figured Will might show up just to try to corner her again. But it was really one of the only times she had the chance to take Noah and she preferred to have the pool to themselves as much as possible. Will had again walked them home.

Another, afternoon, she'd gotten home and off the subway at a reasonable hour and Will had seen her waiting for the elevator with her son and the stroller. They ended up going to a nearby playground to let Noah run some of his sillies out before it got dark. Will had again shone with Noah. He just seemed to know how to play with kids and Noah was eating it up – happily chasing him and pushing at him and running around with a trail of giggles following after him. Though, she was comforted in the fact that her son always came back to her for hugs and cuddles after. And he was still only letting her pushing him on the swings.

Their conversations were seeming a little more natural too. She was slowly learning a bit more about him – and very slowly she was allowing a little more about herself out too. Bit by bit. She was being cautious. She still wasn't sure what to make of it all. She wasn't even sure what she wanted out of it. She wasn't sure she wanted or needed a friend. At least not another male friend. Men and women really can't be friends, she'd decided. She didn't completely believe that but she also knew there was some truth to it. It always created complications for one of the parties. She knew for a fact her and Elliot being friends created complications for him. In this scenario, though, she knew it was likely going to end up being her who had to deal with any complications. She just didn't want to do that. Work, Noah, Kurt – it was enough complications. She didn't need to add Will's complications to the mix. He wasn't a bad guy, though, she told herself again.

She hadn't yet been able to bring herself to broach the topic with Will about his interactions with her son, though – like Huang had suggested. She knew he was sort of right and it was likely a conservation she needed to have with Will. But she hadn't quite figured out how she wanted to approach it. Having the conversation was basically officially allowing him into their lives – if not welcoming him as a friend. She wasn't sure she was ready to go from neighbour to friend yet.

"Oh yeah?" Will said in sarcastic disbelief. "So you coming on Saturday?"

She tapped the tickets on the counter. "I haven't decided yet," she said.

"Ah, well, that's progress from the all out nos I've been getting," he said and she could almost hear a smile in his voice.

"It's likely still going to be a no," she told him seriously.

"Oh, I know," he said. "You just need time to make such a big decision official."

"All decisions have implications, Will," she told him seriously.

"Hmm," he seemed to agree. "You're right – and the implications of where to eat your last barbeque of the season … those are big and important. Keep mauling over this decision, Olivia."

She shook her head and tapped the tickets some more and again looked at Noah. He was chewing on something – she'd missed what he put in his mouth. It looked like food, though – no gnawing on his dinosaurs.

"It'd actually be our first barbeque of the season," she said, as she watched her son.

"Well, that's just an atrocity," Will told her. "Now you have to come."

She smoothed her hand on the counter. He said they weren't flirting – but she sure as hell felt like they were flirting sometimes. Maybe she'd just forgotten what flirting looked like or how to do it properly. Maybe she'd become more of a Mommy than she thought.

She shrugged. "Maybe," she allowed.

Will was quiet for a bit but she didn't hear him rustling his papers anymore.

"Ah, well, I'm taking a familial break on Friday – so I'll be back into the city. I'm going to attempt some of the Black Friday chaos if the shelves at Best Buy and the Apple Store aren't completely ravaged by the time I get my ass moving. But … yeah … so I'll be back to my apartment by the late afternoon likely. I'll check in on you guys … see if you've made this life-changing decision."

"It's not…"

"Season-changing," he self-corrected before she could say anything more and she allowed a small snort of a laugh. "Barbeque is a big deal, Olivia. No laughing."

She nodded – and he must've felt it.

"So yeah … I'll see you then," he offered.

"Yeah," she said quietly.

"Use those tickets," he told her. "Or give them to someone who will. Don't waste my twenty-five buck there, Liv."

"I didn't say you could call me that," she told him.

He laughed. "Liv? What's wrong with that?"

"You aren't on the list," she told him seriously.

"Oh. So there's special privileges on the elusive friend list, is there?" he joked.

She smoothed her hand more on the counter and looked at Noah again. He had a Cheerio held up at his T-Rex's mouth. She was always digging food out of that thing's mouth. Actually, she was generally having to throw the set in the sink for a wash-down about every night after she got him to bed.

"Sweets, don't do that," she called at him and he looked at her and pouted but put the Cheerio in his own mouth instead.

"What's he doing?" Will asked.

"Feeding the dinosaurs," she said.

She heard him give a small laugh at that. But there was some sound in a background – like a knock and some mumbled talking.

"Hey," he said. "I've got to go, Olivia," he said very purposefully. "I've got a kid here wanting some assignment help."

"Sure," she said.

"Have a good day – and Happy Thanksgiving," he told her.

She gave a small nod. "Yeah, you too."

She paused – it was quiet she wasn't sure if he'd hung up yet. "Thanks," she said. "… for the tickets."

It was still quiet for a moment but then his voice came back. "Sure, no problem. I hope you guys have fun. See you Friday."

She nodded and looked at her phone to hang it up. She looked at Noah and went to sit down with him. He smiled at her – apparently having forgotten his pout from moments earlier already. She pulled what was left of his toast towards her and took a bite, watching him. He stomped the one dinosaur around some more.

"What do you think, sweets," she asked as she swallowed, "you think we should go to Will's barbeque?"

"'Ill," Noah said and looked at her. She wasn't sure if it was an agreement or a question.

She smiled at him and shook her head. "You're silly," she told him.

"Mommy," he said and stomped with a dinosaur before holding out the stegosaurus towards her. She took it and trotted it around the table a bit for him while he beat the T-Rex's mouth against its back.

"You going to eat anymore breakfast, sweets?" she asked him.

He shook his head vigourously at that. "NO!"

She gave him a nod. "You going to take a pee for Mommy before we head to daycare?"

He seemed to consider that.

"Take a pee and then we'll go to the subway," she told him that time.

"Subway ride?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Every day, Noah."

"OK," he agreed.

She snorted. "OK," she agreed too and stood sticking out her hand for him.

"I wish subway rides were still that exciting for me," she told him, as she guided him to the bathroom. "I bet a ferry ride would be even more exciting then."

"Pet-r An fairy?"

She laughed as she crouched down to help him after he didn't manage to get his pants or Pull-Ups all the way down. She didn't really think they were appropriately made for little hands – or her son was exceedingly awkward.

"Staten Island Ferry," she told him.

"'Taten I-land," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah. I think we might go and check out where Staten Island is. What normal families do on holidays. I'm sure it's going to be very educational."

Noah looked at her questioningly from his potty. "I pee," he told her.

She laughed and shook her head. "That's great, sweets. Very educational – and another sticker for you."

"Ticker!" Noah said.


	18. Chapter 18

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd almost startled as Will said, "Olivia, you coming?"

She'd kind of spaced out a bit – taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself that this wasn't a big deal. It was a perfectly normal person thing to do. It was just a dinner – a barbeque – at a friend's house. Well his parent's house. People did things like get together for dinner on holiday weekends all the time. It'd be good for her – good for Noah.

She focused her eyes on him. He was holding open the side gate at the very suburban-looking house in the quiet, residential neighbourhood that they'd finally arrived at after almost two hours on the subway, ferry, bus and then a several block walk.

She thought if she'd realized it was going to be that long of a transit ride, she may have never agreed to the idea. She was amazed Noah had been mostly co-operative on the trip. Though, the thrill of the ferry and getting to run around the boat had been a welcome break from the monotony of the rest of the trip for him. Still, she had seen how he'd been acting on the walk to the house. He was full of beans yet bordering on exhausted now too. He'd been tugging at her hands and wanting to run ahead of them – but shrieking his protest whenever she called him back or caught up to him to grab his hand tightly again. She suspected there would be a tantrum in the offing, which would likely be a little embarrassing. She was kind of hoping that after introductions, Noah would decide to go into his usual shy mode and hopefully decide to finally crash for his afternoon nap in the stroller.

"Ah, yeah," she nodded at Will.

He gave her a small smile. "You still thinking about backing out of this?" he teased. "It's your last chance."

She allowed a small smile back and shook her head. It was a lie, though. She'd been thinking about backing out of it nearly the entire trip there. Actually, she'd been thinking about it ever since she'd agreed to it when he stopped by her apartment the night before. It really was kind of ridiculous.

She didn't know what she was thinking or doing. She'd only ever met the family of one of her boyfriends ever – and that had been when she was young, a college kid. Will wasn't even her boyfriend. He wasn't even really a friend, was he? He was a neighbour. And she was meeting his family?

He'd been being really sweet to her on the trip over, though. He was chatty – as usual. Talking about absurdities of his Thanksgiving Day, talking about his even larger absurdities of trying to get some sort of atrocious deal on some flash drives amid the Black Friday chaos. It hadn't sounded like it had been worth wading through the crowds. Though, it did sound like it had allowed him yet another interesting snap-shot of the American psyche and the rampant commercialism and materialism that seemed to kick in at this time of year.

She sometimes liked to think she was immune to it. But she knew she wasn't. She liked her "stuff" and her brands and her "nice things" just as much as the next person. Though, she supposed having a toddler who was happy to muck up anything, no matter the price tag or the brand label on it, was helping her come to terms with some of that anymore. Stuff was just stuff – and chances were that Noah was going to get into it, damage or deface it in some way and she'd better not really care all that much about it. The reality was that it was all replaceable anyways. Her son wasn't – and she had wanted a child for so long and so badly. So he could, technically, gum up anything he wanted, she supposed. Or at least that's what she told herself when he ended up gumming up something else and she felt those twinges of anger or frustration.

Will had asked about the Christmas Spectacular and how'd they'd like it. He'd listened intently while she talked about it and had given her this sincere smile like he actually was enjoying listening to her talk about something that it was clear he'd already seen many times over in his lifetime. He'd teased and played with Noah. And he'd given her little briefings on his family – names and things to just ignore, some anecdotes about his family dynamics, which had kind of quashed her visions of maybe getting to see how a "normal" family operated.

The way Will painted them – they didn't sound that normal. She knew he was trying to be helpful. But she thought he'd ended up making her a little bit more nervous about the whole thing and wonder even more if she really should be participating.

"I'm good," she told him, though.

He gave her another smile and a little nod and then gestured for her to follow him. He grabbed the stroller for her and pushed it ahead a bit, parking it against the side of the house, while she tried to guide Noah to follow into the backyard. He was starting to seem a little shy and suspicious of the situation already, though, so she bent down and picked him up, resting him on her hip, while she followed Will up around the corner of the house.

She'd been able to smell the barbeque even as they walked up the street. The smell seemed to travel farther in the crisp fall air. It wasn't exactly cold out yet – but they were definitely well into autumn at that point and you were starting to feel the bit of winter in the breeze. She'd noticed it pretty well on the ferry and had wished she'd considering bringing her own toque and not just pulled one down over Noah's ears. She was glad she'd brought gloves, though, because she heard chatter as they walked up the side of the house and she was starting to suspect it wasn't just the cooking that would be going on outside – any socializing would be too.

As they rounded the corner, they ended up in a fair-sized backyard – certainly larger than any backyard she could ever imagine having at any home she owned. Though, she wasn't exactly sure she could even imagine owning a home anywhere in the city – Staten Island or not. Definitely not Manhattan, though, not on a detective's salary.

There was a little shed off in the corner and an elevated deck against the house. An older-looking man was standing in front of a barbeque with his back to them as they came into the backyard – and she noticed that another man was sitting on the chair of some well-weathered patio furniture that took up most of the deck.

He was clearly one of Will's brothers. She could see the resemblance, though, the man was definitely a fuller figure than Will and his facial features much more square. He had a beer in his hand and had been holding it up to his mouth, apparently about to take a drink after saying something she hadn't caught. But he was clearly laughing at his own comment. He'd stopped whatever he was doing and saying, though, as they rounded the corner and eyed them instead. The man at the barbeque still hadn't seemed to notice them and continued saying something about college football.

Will glanced at her and then put his hand up against the porch railing – still standing on the grass – almost like he was waiting to be noticed and invited up.

"Hey Dad," he said.

The man at the barbeque made a movement that at least acknowledged that Will was there now – but he still didn't turn around.

"Ah, you decided to come back, did you?" his dad had commented, still basting at whatever was on the grill with a long barbeque brush.

Will made a sighing noise. "I told you I'd be back today," he said quietly.

"Mmm," his dad had said. "We never know with you, if you're coming or going, son."

Will glanced back at Olivia again and gave her almost an apologetic look. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say or do and shifted Noah a bit more on her hip. Maybe this really was a bad idea.

"You ran out of here awful quick yesterday morning," Ted commented again.

Will looked up at the sky and even from standing half a step behind him, she could feel him roll his eyes.

"I didn't run out of here. I told you I was going back into the city to do some Black Friday shopping and to deal with some work priorities – and that I'd be back this afternoon."

"Should've gone with the ladies there Willie," the guy at the table commented and gave a smart-ass grin at his obnoxious comment.

Will looked at the ground and shook his head. "I don't think they would've been that interested in $2 flash drives, Tom. But I'll keep that in mind for next year."

"You upset your mother," his dad had piped up again. "Didn't take the care package she put together for you."

"I didn't take the turkey – because I was coming back today, Dad," Will sighed.

"You better apologize to your mother," the man had said again.

Will had looked at the ground and shaken his head some more and turned a bit towards Olivia, placing his other hand against the porch - almost leaning against it for real support now. She almost felt sorry for him and the little critique and belittling that was going on. It seemed a bit like overkill.

"Yeah, OK," he mumbled with downcast eyes. But she gave him a small smile in a minor attempt at support or at least some sort of acknowledgement that she was on his side and didn't think the prelude was really necessary conversation.

"You sad 'Ill?" Noah said after examining him too.

Will had glanced up at that and gave Noah a little smile. "Nah, I'm not sad, bud," he said.

His father had finally turned around at that point, hearing her son's little voice, and acknowledged all of their presences. Olivia made brief eye contact with him and she examined him. He was definitely where the square facial features came from on the brother but he had Will's same steely grey eyes. His face was slightly red, she thought just from natural skin tone and not embarrassment at the situation, and he had the start of jowls with age; they were highlighted more by the white mustache above his upper lip and the short-cropped haircut of the same snowy hair.

"Mommy – 'Ill needs hug," Noah informed her.

She snorted at him – and gave him another little smile. Her son already had a good heart.

"I think maybe you're right, sweets," she told him quietly. "How about you give Will a hug?"

She took a step towards Will and handed her son over, who was already reaching for him and again clung to the man, who almost expertly managed to take the transfer and balance the boy on his hip. Noah wrapped his arms around his neck briefly but then planted his little hands on Will's face, pulling his mouth back into a forced smile. Olivia snorted at the motion. Noah was always playing at her face too. It wasn't exactly comfortable – or appealingly hygienic considering how much mess he got his grubby little hands into.

Will gave a small laugh, though.

"All better," Noah told him.

Will nodded and looked at Olivia. "All better," he agreed. She allowed another small snort of a laugh and gave him a thin smile, and reached out to rub Noah's back in Will's arms, making sure to make eye contact with him.

He turned back a bit towards his father. "Ah, Dad, I mentioned to you guys several times that I was likely bringing a friend over for dinner tonight." He motioned back to her, turning towads her slightly. "This is Olivia, my neighbour, and her son, Noah," he said and rubbed the little boy's back.

She gave a small nod towards the man and a thin smile – after what she'd just seen, it was about all she could manage. "Hello," she said quietly.

"My dad," Will offered, looking at her again, "Ted, and that's Tom," he said, nodding at the other man, who tipped his beer at her with a slight tilt of his head. She allowed him a thin smile as well.

Ted seemed to examine the three of them some more for a minute before reacting – but he finally set down his barbeque brush and came down the steps. He pounded a fist against Will's shoulder, apparently in some sort of rough greeting. But he then stepped towards her and stuck out a giant hand. She accepted it, though his grip nearly crushed hers, and she was used to dealing with the firm and opposing handshakes of other cops.

"Hello, welcome," he said and patted her shoulder, giving her a friendly enough smile. Though, she really wasn't sure how friendly he was based on the previous interaction she'd just observed between him and Will.

The man glanced at Tom and whistled at him almost like you would to call a dog – or at least a sports team into line. "Well get out of that chair, Tommy, let your brother and his friend sit down. Offer them a drink."

The other man had made a bit of a disgusted face but got up. "Sure, why not, come kick up your heels, there, Willie. Wouldn't want you fading away on us."

Will had rolled his eyes and shaken his head but looked at her and shrugged. She just shrugged back and followed him up the couple steps.

"Here, I'll even hold out the chair for the lady," Tom had said, keeping a hand on the back of the seat he'd vacated. She'd given him a bit of a dirty look and he'd balked. "Oh, don't worry, I didn't mean for you. I meant for baby brother."

Will exhaled and just shook his head more. "Whatever," he said and just took the chair, planting Noah on the ground between his knees.

He gestured for her to claim one of the other seats – so she did and Noah immediately trotted back to her. She was still examining Will's brother, though. He seemed a little obnoxious. Now he'd been identified as Tom, though, she knew he was the one that had previously found himself in a bit of trouble and had been saved by Daddy and his family name. She could see the cowboy in him. She knew cops who were the exact same personality type. They pissed her off too.

"So what do you drink?" Tom had directed at her. "You want a beer or you going to take water like this pussy." He'd whacked Will in the back of the head.

Will clearly hadn't been expecting it and had put his hand up there like it must've hurt and gapped at his brother. He didn't say anything, though.

Ted had whistled again from back in front of the barbeque and pointed the brush at Tom. "You watch your language in front of her little boy. Not everyone wants their kids with mouths like yours," he'd said pointedly.

She stroked Noah's hair and examined Tom before looking at Will. "What are you drinking Will?" she asked, ignoring Tom's comments at the man. He was pissing her off. She knew Will well enough to think he didn't deserve that kind of abuse.

He met her eyes briefly and then glanced at Tom, who was still standing behind him. "I'll have a beer," he said.

Tom had looked at him. "We've only got Guinness and Sam Adams left right now. None of your blonde crap."

Will had made another sound of disgust. She thought more at the comment then the beer choices. She knew Will drank Sam Adams. She'd seen him with it.

"We've still got some of the ladies' wine coolers too there, Willie," Tom had added just as obnoxiously.

"I didn't know firefighters were so picky about their beer," she spat at him, since no one else seemed to think the way he was talking to Will was inappropriate and Will certainly wasn't standing up for himself. "Thought you just stuck with the Bud Light piss. Real men, right?"

Tom eyed her and slowly took a drink out of his bottle – clearly not the ale that he was claiming that was all that was left in the house. He had a Heineken.

"That so," he said. "Sounds like you think you know all about it."

She looked at him and pulled Noah up into her lap, where he pounded on their glass-topped patio table and then started drawing pictures in the film of dirt that was sticking to it.

"I know enough," she said, not afraid of keeping the eye contact with the man she was quickly deciding was an asshole.

"Mmm," was all Tom said back to her and eyed her up some more – clearly measuring her.

"Leave her alone, Tom," Will said.

Tom smacked him in the back of the head again.

"Hey, don't do that to him," Olivia snapped at the guy. "That's really uncalled for."

Tom pulled his lips into a smile at her at that and glanced down at Will – and she suddenly knew that by speaking up she'd likely just made it worse for him. But Ted had finally apparently decided to intervene. She somehow doubted he would've though, if she hadn't said something.

"Tommy, leave your brother alone. Go and get one of his Beck's – they're down in the beer fridge in the basement," Ted ordered. "Make those kids of yours get their butts outside too – enough of that stupid game. It's Thanksgiving. They're supposed to be throwing a football around or something – not being rock stars or whatever that racket is they're making down there. Introduce Kyle to Noah."

Tom had grunted and almost glared at his father. She didn't think Will would get away with that type of body language towards his man – even in her 10 minutes there – but apparently it was OK for the elder brother. Ted hadn't even seemed to notice.

"So what do you want?" he directed at her again.

"I'll have a Heineken," she said.

He wagged his at her. "Last one," he said obnoxiously.

"Tom," Ted had ordered again, "get the lady what she asked for."

Tom eyed her again and she glared back at him. Will had said he didn't get alone so well with this brother – and she could see why. She'd already decided she didn't much like him and she wasn't sure she wanted Noah being introduced to any of his offspring. If this was a preview of what Will's family was like – or what a normal family was like – she was starting to feel better about the fact she didn't have a family.

"Bet you look pretty in blue," Tom had said, now leaning against the exterior wall of the house and still making no move to get them the requested beverages.

"Tommy," Ted snapped again, "go get your brother and the lady their drinks."

Tom shook his head. "She ain't no lady," he said. "She's vice."

She glared at him and shook her head. "I'm not vice."

"Tom, just leave her alone," Will pleaded.

Ted turned towards them all. "OK. Enough, children. Tommy – go."

"Mmm," he said again.

Will stood up. "I'll get them."

"William, sit," Ted demanded louder and Noah made a startled sound and looked at her and then clung to her neck. She rubbed his back. This was definitely not a normal family dynamic. She was bordering on horrified – no wonder Noah was scared.

"Thomas," Ted said in a stern voice. "We have a guest. Go get your brother and Olivia their drinks - and tell your mother that Will is here."

Tom finally made a move for the door at that – but he kept his eyes on her. She watched him back. "I see who you are," he said quietly as he started to turn.

Tom yanked open the backdoor and yelled in, looking directly at Will. "Hey, Ma, Willie's here. He brought a girl."

She cringed and gave him another look – but he just gave her a shit-eating grin, clearly knowing he was being beyond obnoxious. She looked at Will and gave him a 'what the hell?' look and he just mouthed 'sorry' and looked beyond embarrassed. They didn't have a chance to verbally say anything, though, because now Ted was examining them.

"So what is it that do you do Olivia?" he asked. He said it politely enough – but she felt his eyes examining and measuring her worth too.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and rubbed at her eyebrow, while watching Noah. She'd handed him one of his dinosaurs from out of her jacket pocket and he'd seemed to have calmed about the new environment and the slightly hostile vibe that was radiating through the backyard.

She glanced at Will before making eye contact with Ted McTeague again. Huang had told her he had a commanding presence and he definitely did. He was a big man – his chest seemed to be puffed out in a way that was demanding attention and respect. His biceps were bulging in his crossed arms, which were clothed in a grey tshirt, that she thought was likely far too summer-y for the weather they were in, even though he seemed to be pretty attached to the barbeque and the heat radiating off it. The way he was looking at her too had this seriousness in it, how he'd spoken and interacted with his sons too. He was clearly the patriarch, who was used to be heard and answered to.

"I'm a detective with the NYPD," she offered simply.

"Mmm," Ted had said. "Detective with which unit?"

She glanced at Will. She wasn't ashamed on what she did – but she wasn't sure it was information Will had wanted her to make available to his family, his father in particular. But she also didn't think she had much choice in giving an answer at that point."

"I'm a member of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit."

Ted examined her a bit more. She saw his eyes move taking her in from head to toe.

"The sex police," Ted said.

She gave a small nod, combining it with a little shrug.

"Mmm," he said.

"Mommy please offer," Noah informed Ted. At least he was proud of what she did and made a point to provide that same insight whenever anyone uttered the words "cop" or "police".

"How old's your boy?"

"He's two-and-a-half."

"Mmm," Ted said again and turned back to his grill and lifted the lid again to look at what she could now see was ribs. "The One-Six. Cragen," he some how pulled out of his head.

She wasn't sure what he meant by it, if anything. So she just nodded, "Ah, yeah," she said and glanced at Will. He shrugged.

"Mmm," Ted said again. "That most keep you busy, Olivia. Did you get your very important work done yesterday, Will?"

Will had looked up at the sky and let out an almost inaudible sigh. He glanced at Olivia and gave a small frown. She again felt a wave of sadness for him. He looked helpless – but what she really kept seeing was that broken look he'd had in the pool after he'd told her he didn't much fit into the McTeague dynasty.

"It's an article for an academic journal, Dad, and, yes, it got done."

"Mmm," he said again. "Very important work."

Olivia rubbed her eyebrow and glanced at Will. "Will was actually telling me on the way over here that he's presenting some of his research from that article at a function at the Harvard Club in January – to some of the top business leaders in the city."

"Mmm," Ted said. "Very important work."

She glanced at Will again – and he gave her a look like she should drop it. She ignored it. "Well, the Harvard Club is pretty impressive and so is attracting that kind of interest."

Tom had come back out, though. He handed her a bottle but smacked Will's so forcibly down on the table that some of the beer had slashed up the neck and rolled down to the table. He again didn't say anything.

"What are we talking about?" Tom said and pulled out one of the vacant chairs, planting himself between Will and Olivia. His presence made Noah cling to her again. She rubbed his back.

"Your brother's work," Ted said.

"Ah, one plus one equals," Tom said.

Olivia gapped at him some more. She looked at Will. "You people aren't serious? He's a tenured professor at NYU. At the Courant Institute. He went to MIT and Harvard. He's a published author. He's won awards for his research, for his teaching."

She was seriously horrified at how he was being treated. She didn't get what he did – but there was no denying that he'd worked hard to get there and he was clearly intelligent. Socially awkward, yes, but after you started to talk to him – the man could talk intelligently about almost any topic you threw at him. Some of the topics he brought up on his own – she didn't really know she'd define them as normal people topics of conversation. But he'd also chatted at her about politics and municipal issues and world events in the news. He'd brought up books after she'd mentioned her mother was a professor of Classical Literature. He was clearly well read – and he knew are too much about technology and science – and sports.

"Com'on Willie, rattle off some of those baseball stats for us," Tom said. "Show us the real important aspects of all those number figurings."

She'd seen Will's nose flare again at that – and she looked at him. This was ridiculous. She treated humps better than what these two were doing to their son and brother.

He sighed. "Why don't we go inside?" he suggested. "I'm still kind of cold from the ferry ride."

She nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

"Need to beef up, Willie," Tom said. "Get some meat on you."

She balked at Tom again. "What? So he can look like you? He's a fucking triathlete. What are you? Coney Island's last hot dog eating champion?"

Tom laughed and glanced at his father. "I like her."

She picked up Noah and glared at him. "I don't like you."

Will held the door for her and she carried her son inside glancing at him. She didn't know why the hell he would've wanted her to come and interact with this. She wasn't sure she wanted to stay much longer – let alone sit down for dinner with these people. But she could also see from Will's body language he was deeply embarrassed. She didn't want to add to the hurt he was feeling. She didn't think she'd helped with his embarrassment. She hoped that whatever was inside was better than the two men on the deck.


	19. Chapter 19

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She grabbed Will's arm and pulled him so he was facing her as they got in the backdoor and a few steps down the little hallway. He gave her a questioning look.

"I don't care if that man is your brother," she hissed a whisper at him sternly. "You shouldn't let people talk to you like that – and you definitely shouldn't let ANYONE touch you like that."

Will rolled his eyes at her – and she jabbed the fingers of her hand into his one shoulder, knocking it slightly against the wall behind him. He looked at her again with that.

"I'm serious, Will," she told him. "I deal with enough assholes like that every day. I'm not going to hang around here on my day off and watch someone treat people that way."

He looked down, looking even more embarrassed. He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said so quietly she hardly made it out.

"Don't be sorry," she said and pulled Noah back up and onto her hip again. "You weren't the one being a complete idiot."

"Id-it," Noah declared.

Will laughed at that. But Olivia shook her head and put her forehead against Noah's. "No, sweets," she said. "Don't listen to Mommy so much."

"Id-it," he said again and pointed at Will.

She grabbed his finger and pulled it down. "Will is not the idiot, sweets."

"Id-it," he pulled his hand away and pointed at her instead.

She grabbed his hand again and shook her head. "Definitely not, Noah. NO using that word."

He eyed her and then looked at Will. "How bout snack?" he suggested.

"How about nap?" Olivia suggested.

Noah shook his head. "No."

"Mmm," she said.

"Stop blocking the hallway lovebirds," Tom's obnoxious voice called from outside the screen door at the end of the small hallway they were still standing in.

Olivia gave Will a hard look of disgust.

"It's just Tom being Tom," he said quietly.

"I'm not putting up with it, Will," she said. "This isn't what I thought I was signing up for today."

He sighed and hung his head – but gave a small nod. "OK," he said quietly and shrugged. "I need to say hi to my Mom. But if after that you still want to go, I'll take you back to the ferry."

"Oh, and you'll just come back here and sit here and take this?" she asked, clearly disgusted.

"Take this! Take that!" Noah said and looked at her excitedly. She shook her head at him again with a small smile.

"They're my family, Olivia," Will said. "I told them I'd be here today. It's tradition."

"Is your father and brother belittling you like that in front of person they've just met – a guest their home, a person you've presented as a friend – a tradition too?"

He snorted at that and met her eyes and gave her a little nod. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, that's ridiculous," she told him. "You don't deserve that. Not from your family. Not from anyone."

He shook his head at her. "Oh, com'on, it's not like you've been that polite to me either."

She jabbed her fingers under his shoulder blade again and gave him a little push. Noah joined her reaching out one of his little hands and shoving it against the man's chest too.

"I have never talked to you like THAT," she said. "And, it's offensive that you are suggesting that I have."

"You've had some choice words for me."

"When you deserved them. You did not deserve what just happened out there. At all. No one would. I deal with a lot of twisted people, Will, and I don't treat them the way you were just spoken to out there."

He sighed and looked at the ground again. But then Tom came barging in and down the hall.

"Com'on, com'on, break it up," he said and pushed through between them.

Olivia watched after him and he rounded a corner and then heard him yelling. "Tommy, Wendy, Kyle. Up here. NOW! Second warning."

Then he was back down the hall and pushing through them again. "Still here?" he commented at them.

"Oh, I'm just leaving," Olivia spat after him.

Tom gave her a grin and looked at Will. "You always scare them away pretty quick, don't you, Willie?" He patted Will's cheek so hard she could hear the smack and see the red as Tom dropped his hand away.

"Hey," Olivia raised her voice and glared nails into him. "I'm not telling you again. You don't fucking touch him."

"What's going on out there?" a woman's voice came from down at the end of the hallway and Will glanced in that direction, a look of concern painting across his face.

"Nothing, Mom, I'll be in in a sec to say hi."

"You forgot your care package," the voice said again from somewhere just out-of-sight.

"I know," Will called again. "I'm getting it now."

"Did you eat lunch yet? I'm getting together a snack for you."

Will sighed harder and looked at the ceiling.

"I'm fine."

"Just some veggies and cheese. Robbie is supposed to be here soon too. He'll be hungry from tour. Maybe Jimmy too. He wants those thingies you went into town for."

"OK, Ma," he sighed.

Tom grinned and nodded at Olivia. "Got yourself a Mama's Boy," he said. "Actually looks like you got two."

He reached up a hand like he was going to tweak Noah's nose or something and she jerked her son away from him and took a step back.

"Don't you dare touch my son," she glared at him and probably said louder than she needed to.

"She's got quite the mouth," Tom directed at Will.

"I'm standing right here," she told Tom. "You can direct your little critiques of me my way."

Tom gave a silent laugh and looked at Will again, who was back to examining the floor.

"She's going to eat you alive, baby brother," he said and pushed Will's head before he clattered back down the hall and out the door.

"They're still loitering in the fucking hallway," she heard him say as he got out the door.

"Watch that mouth," she then heard Ted respond, "and you leave your brother and his guest alone."

"He brought the fucking panty police to the house, Dad. Seriously? What the fuck?"

"You aren't in the fire hall or bus bay, son. You drop that language."

"Com'on, Dad. You're going to let that carry on. Will still blushes at the mention of sex – and he's with the panty police, and a woman that looks like that."

"You'll be polite to our guest," Ted warned.

"Did you hear about our guys up at the D4 who got jammed up by the fucking panty police after some fucking junkie accused them of assault in the back of the bus? Bet you she was involved in that gong show."

"Thomas, I don't care if it was one of our boys or not. Rape – not assault, son, rape - accusations get investigated. It is paramount to all our integrity. If Olivia was involved, she was doing her job – and you should thank her for it."

"Fuck that. Fucking NYPD."

"You watch that mouth," Ted demanded again, a little louder. "You know that anyone that serves this city is welcome in our home – and you will treat Olivia appropriately."

"I'm not eating at the same fucking table as the panty police. Fucking lady cop. It's bullshit."

"Then you're welcome to take your children – and go and eat in your own home," Ted said sternly.

Will sighed hard and looked at her. She was looking down the hallway and out the door too. They both were – listening to the back-and-forth, while Noah worked at re-arranging her hair and giving her sloppy kisses. She stroked his little head a bit.

"Will you at least let me introduce you to my Mom," he said. "She'll want to meet you. She'll be upset if we leave without me doing that. And then I'll take you home."

She gave him a small nod and barely mouthed, "OK."

He looked so sad and embarrassed. She was sad and embarrassed for him too.


	20. Chapter 20

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hi Mom," Will said to the woman that he made a beeline for as as they got into the kitchen.

The short woman, glanced up at him and smiled from where she was dicing up some cubes of cheese at an island counter in the kitchen.

Will bent down and gave her a small kiss on her cheek, and his mother gripped at his arm and gave him a small pat on the back, before returning a little pick on the cheek.

"Oh, William," she said, "I was wondering when you'd get back here."

Olivia could see that Will got most of his looks from his mother. She'd seen the man's eyes in his father – and clearly the height. But the narrower face and the wavy, dark blond mess of hair on him – that was his mother's. The slimmer build must've come from her side of the family too. He definitely didn't have the firefighter bulk that she'd seen in the two men on the porch out back.

The woman glanced at Olivia and nearly glowed. "Well, introduce me to your friend, William," she said. "Don't be rude."

"Olivia," Liv offered for her and stepped forward, offering a loose hand, but may just shook her head and wiped her hands on an apron at her front.

"Oh, forgive me," she said, "I'm just working on some snacks. I'm May. McTeague."

She glanced at Will. "You didn't tell me you were bringing up a girlfriend," she slapped his chest with the back of her hand.

Will looked at Olivia and let out a sigh. "Female friend, Mom. My new neighbour."

May just waved a dismissive wrist at Olivia. "Oh, she knows what I mean."

"Dad acted like this was all new information to him," Will commented, leaning against one of the counters.

"Will, please. You know what his hearing is like anymore."

"Selective," Will said with some disgust.

May looked at him sternly. "Don't the two of you start again. I had to listen to you natter at each other all Thanksgiving. I'm not going to do it again tonight."

Will let out a sigh and looked at the floor.

"And who's this?" May asked, smiling at Noah on Olivia's hip.

"Noah," Olivia offered.

May met her eyes. "Well isn't he just beautiful. Will left that out too," she said, giving him a bit of an accusing look.

"I didn't know you needed so many details, Mom," he shook his head. "I told you I was brining a friend."

May waved a hand at him. "I thought it would be that Greg boy again."

"Greg is a man, mother," Will said. "All my friends are – we're adults."

May looked at him. "That boy is no where near a man," she informed him. She looked at Olivia. "Have you met this friend of his?"

Olivia sucked back a bit of a laugh and rubbed at her eyebrow. "Ah, yeah, I think we had the pleasure," she agreed and glanced at Will. He was looking slightly more comfortable in the room with his mother, but possibly just as embarrassed.

"Well, it's nice to see a new face. I was getting a little tired of him," May added. "Does Noah need a snack?" she offered.

Olivia shook her head. "We're OK."

May apparently didn't take that as an answer. "Do you like your vegetables, Noah?" she asked. "Cheese?"

Noah gazed at the plate of veggies on the counter. "Cumbers," he said, sticking out a cubby hand. "Cumbers, Mommy. Cumbers."

So Olivia took a step towards the plate and retrieved a cucumber slice and handed it to Noah, who worked at chewing it and examining it. Will took it as a cue that he was allowed to eat too and claimed a piece of raw broccoli off the plate.

"And I thought you said you were fine," May teased him and wiped her hands down the front of her apron again. "Now, we got some chicken breasts to put on the grill for you," she said. "Is that going to be alright?"

"Yeah, sounds good," Will nodded between bites.

"He doesn't eat pork," May commented and looked at Olivia. "But I suppose you know that."

She glanced at Will, claiming her own cheese cube from the plate. "Ah, no."

"Oh, mmm," May said. "Well, will you be eating the ribs or do you eat like this one?" she asked, pointing at her son again.

"Umm, well, I don't think we're going to be staying for dinner," Olivia said and looked at Will again. "We just came along for the ferry ride," she lied.

May gaped at her. "Oh, don't be foolish. You can't come all the way here and not join us for dinner."

"Mom, Olivia wants to get back out to Manhattan," Will interjected. "She's got things to do."

May shook her head. "Well, it just seems silly to come out the way out here and not stay for dinner."

"Who's not staying for dinner?" another male voice asked and came clattering into the kitchen.

Olivia glanced behind her and saw a younger version of Will's father entering the room. Actually, a spitting image, except for his dark hair replacing the snowy white that had been on the head of the man outside. He dropped a container of Cool Whip on the counter and pulled what looked like sweet potatoes from under his one arm.

"Your brother's friend," May nodded at the man, and then tilted her head in Olivia's direction. So he finally seemed to take notice of her and glanced her way.

"Hey," he said and stuck out a giant hand. "Rob," he offered.

"Olivia," she said and took it.

The man glanced at Will. "The neighbour?" and Will allowed a small nod.

"Nice to meet you," he offered to Olivia and then trekked towards his mother, giving her a small peck, similar to what Will had done. "Hey, Ma," he said.

She pushed him off. "You aren't even in your civvies yet, Robert."

He glanced down at himself. "Well, you had a Cool Whip and yam emergency, Ma. I wanted to get them here ASAP for ya."

May just shook her head some more at him. Rob didn't seem to notice, though, and just continued in his controlled tizzy, yanking open the fridge and looking around it, shoving some things out of the way. Even from where Olivia was standing, she could see the thing was near a capacity. She was actually surprised based on how all the food was stacked inside it – basically on top of each other in massive near Costco-sized packaging – that the door was even closing.

"Robert, you're going to ruin your dinner," May swatted at him. "I have a plate on the counter."

He started pulling some stuff out. "I'm just making a sandwich."

"Go home and let Karen do that for you," she swatted at him again.

"You've got all the leftovers over here. I'm just making a TSC."

"You leave that box alone," she demanded, as he pulled out a Tupperware container with all the fixings of a turkey dinner in it. "That's Will's."

Rob glanced at him. "You going to eat this, Baby Brother?"

"He's taking it home," May interjected without waiting for an answer from her other son.

"Mmm," Rob mumbled and started pulling out larger containers onto the counter instead.

May looked at Olivia. "You see what happens? You just wait. That little boy will hit 11 and start eating you out of house and home – and it just never ends."

Rob glanced up from where he'd dumped several containers along the edge of the island, and had pulled up the foil off a pan. "She loves it."

"Well, offer some to Olivia and your brother," May demanded.

Robert grabbed the bread off the counter behind him. "You want a sandwich?" he directed at her.

She shook her head. "We're fine. Thank you."

"Oh, did you end up with lots of leftovers, Olivia?" May asked then, like she'd been rude not asking that sooner. "Should I make up a care package for you?" she asked, glancing at Will. "Robbie, just leave everything out. I'll do up a care package for Olivia too."

Rob made some sound around the turkey bits he was now shoving in his mouth, while slapping some more on a piece of bread, along with a mound of stuffing and a lathering of cranberry sauce.

"Olivia says she isn't staying for dinner, Robert," May clarified for him again, since apparently the conversation on the matter wasn't yet over.

He glanced up at her. "Dad's ribs scare you away?"

"I told her that we could put a chicken breast on for her," May interjected.

"Mmm," Rob said with a full mouth. "Put one on for me too."

She gapped at him. "You're eating that now and you'll eat a rack of ribs on your own, Robert."

"I just got off tour, Ma. I'm hungry."

May looked at Olivia and put her hands on her hips. "You see? You just wait."

Rob waved his sandwich at her. "The chicken – way better than the ribs. Just don't tell Dad."

She snorted and looked down, watching Noah work at his third piece of cucumber.

"He'll like the ribs, though," Rob nodded at her little boy. "Nice and messy. Ear to ear."

The door at the back of the house had opened again and Tom had come down the hall, but bypassed the kitchen.

"Hey Tom," Rob had called at his back and there was a distinct grunting sound that emitted from the other man.

But the only words that were formed came as he got into the living room and he again yelled down the stairs. "We're going home now. Butts. Up. Here. Now. Final warning. You'll be sorry if I have to come down there."

Apparently the third time of him hollering across the house was enough and there was a trampling of feet up the stairs. Three little kids stuck their heads into the kitchen and called out, "Bye Nana" before Tom stuck his head in too.

"Tom, you should let Kyle stay so he and Noah can play," May said to him.

Tom just glanced at Olivia and shook his head. "Don't think so, Ma."

Olivia rubbed at her son's back and eyed him.

"Keep a hold of your balls," Tom nodded at Rob. "Panty police are in the house."

May gasped at him. "Thomas, don't speak like that in front of guests."

He snorted and grabbed a handful of baby carrots off the plate. "She's heard worse. See ya later."

May gaped after him and then looked at Olivia apologetically. "Sometimes he can be so rude," she shook her head.

Rob eyed her. "Don't let him get to you," he said. "That's just Tom. He used to scare off all Willie's friends when he was a kid too."

Will made a sighing noise and looked up at the ceiling.

Rob glanced at her again and tilted his head at Will. "He didn't mention you're a cop."

"Jesus Christ," Will said a little too loudly and Noah even looked at him. "I didn't know you all needed her resume ahead of the frickin' barbeque."

"William," May looked at him sternly. "You will not use the Lord's name in vain in this house."

Will rolled his eyes, getting another swat from his mother.

"Mommy please offer, 'Ill," Noah said.

Will gave him a small smile. "I know, bud."

"You're with the NYPD, Olivia?" May asked with near glee in her voice.

"Ah, yeah," she nodded.

May swatted Will in the chest again, this time audibly harder. "William, you should tell us things like that."

Will shrugged. "I really didn't know it mattered this much."

Rob made a snorting sound. "You forgetting who's house you're in there, Baby Brother?"

Will let out another sigh and shook his head, giving Olivia apologetic eyes.

"Special victims?" Rob asked, nodding at her.

She gave him a small nod. "Yeah."

"Mmm," Rob said and glanced at Will, seeming to eye him and measure him up, before resting his eyes back on her. "They've got you guys based up in Midtown, don't they?"

She nodded.

"Mmm," he said again, chewing on his sandwich some more. "I'm out of the Ladder 18 Company, Fourth Battalion … in the Lower East Side."

She gave him a nod of acknowledgement at that.

He shook his head at her and looked at Will again. "That's a rough beat they've got you on. How far into your two years are you?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at him. "Year ten," she offered.

He looked at her and considered that. "Ten years with that unit?"

She nodded.

"Mmm," he near grunted and shrugged. "I know a guy out in the Brooklyn SVU. Nico Zeni? Mentioned that most people get out of there after a couple years."

She just shrugged. "Guess not me."

"Can't get a transfer or something?" Rob asked.

She shrugged again. "Haven't asked for one in a while."

Rob examined her some more.

"Robbie, don't interrogate, your guest," May chastised from where she was apparently working on putting about a quarter of a turkey into a Tupperware container, that Olivia suspected she was going to be expected to take home with her.

May looked at her. "We're so happy to welcome you into our home," she said. "You really have to stay for dinner now."

Olivia opened her mouth to try to form some other sort of excuse to escape the intense family dynamics she was witnessing, that she really wasn't sure how to deal with. But she didn't have the chance to say anything.

"Mommy I pee," Noah informed her.

She looked at him. "You need a change, sweets?" she asked.

Noah shook his head. "I pee now."

May looked over. "Are you potty-training?" she asked. "We have a potty set up for Kyle in the bath. Will, go show her."

Will nod. "Ah, yeah," he offered and gestured at the door. "It's this way."

"Umm," she hesitated, "his diaper bag…"

Will nodded. "Yeah. No problem. I'll get it for you guys. I'll show you the potty first, in case he's making progress or whatever."

She gave a small nod and followed him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Will, what are you doing?" his dad called after him, as he trotted down the porch's steps, heading for where he'd left the stroller.

Will glanced back at his father. "Just grabbing Noah's diaper bag for Olivia," he said, pointing and finishing his little walk to snag the bulking thing.

Ted watched him came back up onto the porch with it. "I meant, what are you doing with that woman, son?"

Will looked at him – a bit of insult painting across his face. He shrugged. "Nothing. We're friends."

Ted examined him. "Son, you haven't grieved properly …"

"It was seven years ago, Dad," he spat. "How long am I supposed to grieve?"

"Don't raise your voice at me," Ted said back sternly but then let out a small sigh. "Will, I just don't think you're ready for … this …"

Will snorted. "For what, Dad? For having a woman over to the house for dinner? You might be right there. It's sure not playing out exactly how I thought it would. You guys all seem so focused on giving your usual running commentary of my life, you're being pretty fucking rude to Olivia and Noah."

Ted poked at his chest. "You won't use that language in this house, either, son."

Will rolled his eyes. What was good enough for Tom was never good enough for him.

Ted sighed hard at him and then met his eyes. "Will, you just seem like you're still mourning."

Will crossed his arms. "So what? Part of me is likely always going to be mourning, Dad. Aren't you still mourning?"

Ted shook his head. "It's different, son."

Will rolled his eyes again. "I've told you guys repeatedly – I'm dating again. I'm done with … whatever. Living in a closet because it makes you feel better about how I'm grieving. It's my grief. My life, Dad. I'll deal with both the way I want to."

Ted examined him some more. "You've never brought anyone over to the house before."

Will tossed up his crossed arms. "Because I'm dating. It's nothing serious. I'm not going to bring some random woman that I'm going to go on a few dates with over here."

"But you brought Olivia," Ted stated flatly.

"Because I'm not dating Olivia," Will spat. "She's my neighbour."

"Will, you don't screw around with single mothers," Ted said so sternly that his body nearly shook with it. "You'll both get hurt. That little boy will get hurt."

Will glared at his father. "I am not 'screwing around' with Olivia. She is my neighbour. A friend. She doesn't have family. I thought that maybe getting to spend part of the holiday weekend with a family might be nice for her."

Will went and grabbed the screen door and yanked it open. "I was wrong, though," he spat back at Ted. "You guys have been so welcoming – she'd rather be at home alone. I'm taking her back over to the ferry after she gets Noah changed."


	22. Chapter 22

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt Will looking at her but she was kind of trying to ignore it. They were standing on the deck of the ferry and she was actually pretty transfixed with watching the lights of the city. She didn't see the city lit up from that angle very often.

It was a different experience. It seemed so peaceful in that light – the shadows of the skyline and the bright, flickering lights. There was a beauty to it. It could almost make her forget all the bullshit that really lurked in the city – the darkness and the inhumanity that she got to deal with.

From that angle, in that light, New York actually looked inviting. The romanticized version of the city that the tourists wanted to see or that New Yorkers wanted to brag about. She thought it was a bit of an illusion in a way. In fact, she knew it was. The magic trick of the city. Cloak and mirrors. Still, she liked getting to see it.

She wouldn't be getting to see it, though, if she had just headed back to the ferry like she had wanted too after the rocky start to the afternoon. She wasn't sure how Will had convinced her to stay through the evening at his parents'. She supposed it wasn't him. It was his father - who'd accosted her and offered what seemed like sincere apologies for mostly Tom's behaviour. Though there were some hints that he at least acknowledged that he hadn't exactly put forward the best first impression either.

Ted had near begged her to stay – or at least as much as she could imagine a man of Ted McTeague's stature begging. He'd asked nicely – he didn't order her. She'd really felt that Will had experienced enough embarrassment that afternoon. She didn't really want to add to it by being rude to his family – no matter the rudeness she'd experienced from some of them. So she'd decided to suck it up. A few hours wouldn't kill her.

It really hadn't been that bad. Really, after the introductions were out of the way. It seemed like her and Will had been pretty much ignored until dinner was served. They were left to their own devices. So they'd mostly just sat in the living room.

Will seemed quieter than usual. But she got the impression that in his parents' home, he was quiet. If he wasn't quiet, he seemed to be swearing and then getting told-off. It was a really strange dynamic. They were definitely treating him like a child and he almost seemed content to let them.

Some teens had appeared after a while and had been introduced as some of Rob's kids. Will had eventually convinced her to follow after them down to the basement where they were engrossed in Rock Band. Will seemed to express a bit too much excitement at the apparent awesomeness of the videogame. Though, he'd made sure to clarify that he didn't actually play videogames repeatedly to her.

He'd played with the kids while she just watched the ridiculousness of the plastic-band karaoke. He'd tried to convince her to play but she'd decided she didn't need to embarrass herself in the house, when the whole situation was already awkward enough. Will seemed unimpressed with her denial to play and the kids had egged her on too after Will had expressed to them that she was opposed to fun. She didn't really think it was that funny but was really doing her best to bite her tongue with everyone in the house. It took a lot of effort.

Will had set Noah up on the drums after her refusal to participate and then it took quite a while to get him off to let the older kids play again. Her little boy seemed quite enamored with beating on the plastic get-up with the drumsticks. He certainly wasn't helping the rest of them complete any of the songs. He was giving her a bit of a headache, though.

She glanced over at Will and he quickly diverted his gaze to look out across the water towards the cityscape she'd just pulled her eyes away from.

"What?" she asked, slightly annoyed.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Sorry," he said.

"You were staring at me," she said.

He glanced at her. "No, I wasn't."

"It sure felt like you were."

He looked her face up and down – and then shook his head and looked down a bit, but brought his finger up to his left cheek and ran it across it. "You have a scar," he said, clearly a little embarrassed about being caught making that observation.

She put her hand on her own left cheek. She usually kept the faint mark covered with make-up pretty well. But it was the end of the day and they'd been outdoors and on the water for a chunk of it. Not to mention, they were basically standing right under a light right now. She supposed it wasn't that hard to miss. Though, if he hadn't been staring at her, he likely wouldn't have noticed it either.

"What? You don't have any scars from your childhood?" she retorted, hoping to avoid having to deflect any further questions about it.

She wasn't really ready to have any sort of conversation with him about her life growing up and her mother – despite having now witnessed first-hand what his family life was likely like. And it looked pretty fucked up in it's own way too. Still, she somehow doubted that his mother had ever been drunk enough and enraged enough that she sliced open his cheek with a piece of a broken vodka bottle. May McTeague didn't strike her as the angry, abusive drunk type. More like the insanely overbearing, religious, bake sale, soccer mom type.

Will snorted at her comment, though, in a near laugh and looked over the railing into the black water. "Oh, I've got lots of scars from my childhood," he said.

She had to allow a small laugh at that. At least he seemed to have a bit of a sense of humour about it. She glanced at him. "By the looks of it, it was really special for you," she said.

He met her eyes again and shook his head with a smile. "You have no idea."

They hadn't really talked about the gong-show yet. They'd sat on the bus in near silence out to the ferry. She almost didn't mind it. After having spent hours in that much noise, chatter and general chaos, she was OK with the quiet. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him about it anyways. 'Gee Will, you family is kind of assholes. Their reputation doesn't really live up to the reality.' Though, she had a feeling he might kind of like to hear that from someone.

"I'm sorry about how today went," he offered, meeting her eyes again. "I really didn't think that's the way it would be. If I had, I wouldn't have ever invited you over."

She shrugged. "The food was good."

Will laughed at that. But there was some truth to the statement. The barbeque had been really tasty and Noah, as Rob had predicted, had dug in like it was about the best thing he'd ever tasted. "Bones," he kept on declaring after he finished each rib and wanted another one. He'd eaten five and probably would've licked the barbeque sauce off at least a few more, if she had let him.

But, really, she'd just been amazed be the sheer quantity of the food. The ribs, the chicken breasts, baked yams, corn, grilled veggies, potato salad, mixed greens, rolls. It seemed like the whole table was covered with food – and it was a huge table. A giant dining room table that after the flies were put in expanded well into their living room. Even then that hadn't been enough room for everyone and they'd had two card tables set up for the kids. There'd been stacking end-tables brought out to put the food on even to clear some space after everyone had dug in too.

She almost felt like she was at some sort of commune, or at least summer camp, with all the chatter that was going on as the heaping bowls of food got passed around the table. She didn't know what she was supposed to take. She'd had her plate full and bowls were still being handed to her. And that had just been dinner. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream, baked apples stuffed with cinnamon and raisins and multiple kinds of ice cream had been proffered for dessert but she hadn't left any room – much to May's dismay. So pie and apples had been added to the already heaping care package that the woman had insisted she take home with her.

Olivia wasn't even sure the last time she had had turkey on the holidays – and now she thought she had more than her and Noah could possibly eat before it spoiled. Certainly more than what she'd classify as a leftover take-away. It made her wonder what the size of the bird was that that family had had on Thanksgiving Day. It must've been some sort of pre-historic sized mutant turkey, as far was she was concerned.

"Got turkey out of it too," she added.

Will snorted and shook his head at her. "You want mine too?"

She gave him a smile. "Ah, no. I think your mother gave me more than we can possibly eat."

"You'll have to make some turkey stew or something."

Olivia made a small, amused sound and looked at him. "Yeah, I'm a real Martha Stewart when it comes to uses for leftovers."

"Mmm," Will said. "Well, as a starting point, I suggest the freezer."

She made a sound trying to hold back a laugh and glanced at him again. "Thanks for that tip."

He just nodded from where he was again examining the water with much more fascination than the cityscape. She supposed maybe he didn't like looking at the city from that angle. The gaping whole in the cityscape where the World Trade Centre had once been was more than apparent to any eye familiar with the city. She didn't imagine that was something that Will liked to look at or be reminded of. She suddenly wondered if she'd been rude or insensitive when she'd said she was going to stand out on the deck for the ride back across. He hadn't said anything, though, and had just followed her to rest his arms over the railing in silence.

They were quiet for a while. She checked on Noah, who apparently was exhausted from all the excitement, and had long ago fallen asleep in his stroller.

Will glanced at her again, as she rested her elbows back on the railing after looking at her son.

"I didn't realize there was such … animosity between your unit or whatever and other people in the community," he said quietly and seemed to be eyeing her carefully.

She shrugged. "I'm used to it. The cases we work on make people uncomfortable."

"Why?" Will asked, still eyeing her.

"Live victims," she said simply.

He gazed at her, clearly not understanding.

She sighed. "It's … a lot more to deal with than in homicide. The victims - they talk. They have stories. Their pain is there in your face. They have to deal with it the rest of their lives. Some of it real stays with you in a way that's different then when it's a dead body. It's sex crimes. It's crimes against children. The very nature of the crimes make people uncomfortable. The live victims just make it even worse."

He was still eyeing her. She felt like it was that moment – when guys actually clued into what she did. He was likely contemplating jumping off the boat to get away from her, she thought. Otherwise, he was about to start asking those creepy questions – wanting more details – every disgusting detail. Then it would be her jumping off the boat, she thought. Or maybe getting at extra dead bolt for her door.

"I hadn't really thought too much about what it is that you actually do," Will said kind of quietly after an extended and uncomfortable silence.

She glanced at him from where she'd been kind of pretending to look at the city lights again – unaware of that look he was giving her.

"That's a bit of a first," she said.

He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

"Most of my dates go running for the door after they find out what I actually do," she told him. "Or they lean in wanting to know all the lurid details."

Will gave her a thin smile. "Guess it's a good thing this isn't a date then."

She gave him a small snort at that and went back to looking out over the water.

"I guess, I can kind of relate to that in a way," Will offered after some time.

She glanced at him.

He shrugged. "Most women, they hear I'm a widower and they either suddenly super interested in me and want to mother me and for me to cry on their shoulder – or they go running for the hills as quickly as possible, like I'm beyond damaged goods."

She examined his face. There was a sadness in it again as he said it.

"Guess it's a good thing I'm not interested in you then," she said, trying to repeat his sentiment back to him.

He gave her a snort and a small, but a little sad smile. "Guess so," he agreed, and turned his eyes back to the water.


	23. Chapter 23

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Elliot had been venting about his Thanksgiving at her for at least 10 minutes at that point. She'd basically stopped listening about five minutes ago and was just watching the traffic go by – very slowly. From what she gleaned from the monologue, he and Dickie had been fighting (again), Maureen had brought over yet another boyfriend he didn't like (because at 25 now, she really needed her father's approval on her boyfriends anymore, Olivia thought rather sarcastically), and he just generally didn't enjoy having to spend time at his mother-in-law's house.

She knew that he still hadn't completely mended ties with Kathy's mom. Elliot seemed to partially blame her for some aspects of his and Kathy's separation. Or at least the amount of time he got to see his children while he and Kathy had been separated. He seemed to feel the mother-in-law had some sway and say in all of that – or Kathy's decision-making process in how and when he got to see the kids. It sounded like, just like with Kathy, he'd done his best to re-establish ties with the older woman. But El could be a bit of a rage-o-holic. Liv could see how him spending a holiday weekend with anyone would likely result in moments were most people around him, just didn't want to be around him - his family and mother-in-law included. She was about at the point she didn't want to be around him if she had to listen to anymore of his rant.

"Liv?" he called at her, and she glanced at him from where she'd been gazing out the window of the sedan, basically ignoring him at that point.

"Yea?"

"I asked what you ended up doing," he told her, clearly having caught her not listening to him.

"Oh," she said and rubbed at her eyebrow. "Not much."

She saw him examine her face, his eyes scanning across her features, before he turned his attention back to the road. She never was very good at lying to him. He knew her too well. But she really didn't want to talk to Elliot about Will.

Elliot hated hearing that she had a life. It was like it was OK for him to talk about his family – and especially his kids. But the fact she dated had always made him uncomfortable before. Even the mention of her going out with a man seemed to put his back up against the wall. It had resulted in a few awkward conversations early in their partnership. Some of it had ended up being embarrassing for her – especially when he'd called her out on things. But it mostly ended up making her feel like she had an overbearing big brother.

Over the years it had meant she just avoided talking to him about that aspect of her life. He knew lots of other things about her – too much really. But he didn't need to know who she was dating or sleeping with – or any men in her life in general. Hell, she had avoided telling him about Kurt even until IAB had to go and fucking let the entire Force know she was sleeping with an editor at the Ledger.

Elliot didn't need to know about Will. At least not until she decided what the hell Will was. Whatever they were moving towards, she was finding it confusing. She didn't want a relationship. She didn't think he did either. But she wasn't sure she knew how to be friends with a man outside of the whole work environment. She wasn't sure she wanted a friend. And, then there was this whole Noah aspect to all of it that she was trying to navigate for the first time too.

Elliot definitely did not need to be involved in any way. It wouldn't matter that Will was just her neighbour or just a friend. He had a penis. El would go into protector mode that drove her crazy. He'd start saying stupid crap that would make her want to hit him. Her partner could be such an ass sometimes, she thought.

He'd seen too much on the job. He'd raised three girls. She thought no matter how long she worked with him, no matter how much she'd endured, or dealt with, or proven herself, there was likely going to be a part of Elliot that still felt like he needed to protect her as a woman, and not just treat her like any other cop and or partner.

"What sort of not much?" he asked, coming up on a stoplight.

She shrugged. "Just not much."

"Cook anything? Take Noah to the park? The parade? That craft thing you were talking about?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Guess we did spend some time at the playground."

"Santa visit? Black Friday shopping?"

"Who does this Black Friday shopping in the city? Do actual New Yorkers go shopping on Black Friday in the city? I've never seen the appeal."

Elliot shrugged. "The kids went out for a while."

She glanced at him. "Did they buy anything?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Videogames, clothes. Maureen came home with a new cell phone. Elizabeth a digital camera."

"See, I don't understand that either. It's a month until Christmas. Why do they need to be buying any of that right now? Give you guys a list."

"Yea, I feel about the same way. But some of the crap they came home with isn't anything we'd want get for them anyways. Less bullshit for us to feel compelled to look for or pay for."

"Mmm," she offered as a non-committal answer on that thought of his.

He shrugged. "You'll get it when Noah's a teenager."

She shot him daggers. "Oh, have we graduated to that now, have we? Years of I'll get it when I have children. Now, I can't get it until he's a teenager?"

He gave her an annoyed look. "Calm down," he said and shook his head. "And I thought I had a crappy weekend. Your 'not much' weekend seems to have riled you up a hell of a lot more than mine."

She put her elbow on the edge of the window. "You clearly didn't hear yourself for the last 15 minutes then."

He glanced at her again. "What the hell is wrong?"

"Nothing," she mumbled.

He shook his head at her and then glared out at the road. "Nothing the same as not much?"

"Fuck off, El," she told him without even looking at him.

They were silent for a little while, as he worked at getting into a couple turn lanes and through some intersections.

"So you going to tell me what you really did or what's really wrong?" he asked as they finally managed to get out of the Midtown congestion and working their way into Brooklyn.

"Nothing's wrong," she said and rubbed at her eyes. "I'm just tired."

"Long weekend?" he pushed again.

"Yea, according to the calendar, it was a long weekend."

He snorted at her.

"I'm fine, El."

"Noah OK?"

She rolled her eyes. "He's fine too."

"He keeping you up at night?"

"El, com'on. Drop it."

He shrugged. "OK. Oh, hey, I packed up some turkey leftovers for you and Noah while I was putting some take-aways together for the girls. I tossed it in the fridge back at the precinct."

"God, I don't need more turkey," she said, before she realized it was out of her mouth.

Fuck, she thought. There was no way she was going to get into talking to Elliot about her experience over at the McTeagues – or Will giving her and Noah tickets to the Christmas Spectacular. That was just setting herself up for a bigger interrogation. Even though a big part of her wanted to tell him about the McTeagues – and her observations. She thought he'd be pretty interested in hearing about that – especially some of Tom's comments. But it was rocky territory that she wasn't ready to navigate with him yet. She was still processing the whole thing herself.

He glanced back at her again. "You," he said with some shock and a whole lot of mocking, "actually cooked? I thought 'God invented this things called take-out' …"

"You can order Thanksgiving dinner as take-out," she informed him.

"That sounds tasty."

She nodded. "Oh, it is. Nothing like ordering a holiday meal to eat alone. Leaves a great taste in your mouth."

He glanced at her with some concern painting across his face then. "Liv …"

"I'm joking," she told him. "We didn't order out."

"So you cooked a turkey?"

"No," she said flatly.

He tapped at the steering wheel a bit and glanced her way again. "Someone have you over?"

She shook her head. "Nope." It wasn't a lie. She hadn't been over to Will's parents on Thanksgiving Day.

"You just aren't interested in my mother-in-law's turkey?"

"Not particularly."

She saw him briefly examine her again. "Because you don't need any more turkey?"

"Jesus, El, I missed us walking into the interrogation room."

"You're acting closed off – even for you."

"Ah, well, thanks for that observation."

"Living up there in that condo isn't working out for you is it?" he finally asked after some silence between them. "I told you, you should've gotten the hell out of Manhattan – not lock yourself into another lease."

"El," she spat. "We aren't having this conversation again. I like living in Manhattan. I'm not going to be commuting across creation from one of the other boroughs."

"Get out a mortgage – or at least some cheaper rent. Get a little bit of land, a yard for Noah …"

"I don't want a mortgage – or a yard to take care of," she glared at him.

"Cheaper daycare."

"I can afford Noah's daycare just fine," she informed him.

"I really think you should consider Brooklyn or Queens when your lease is up. Maybe the Bronx."

"El, I don't want to live in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx."

"Why are you so against them?" he asked, clearly as frustrated with her as she was this never-ending conversation about where he thought she should be raising her child.

"Absolutely nothing – if you're married, and have school-aged children, and a car, and are looking to buy – and don't mind spending half of the few waking-hours you have left after you do this job, commuting. I don't fit that list of criteria, El."

"It's going to cost you a fortune raising Noah in Manhattan. In a year, you're going to be looking at preschools. Good luck getting him into one of the free programs."

"El, how about you let me worry about raising my son, OK? End of conversation."

He was quiet for a bit. "So the condo is working out OK, then?"

She sighed. "Yes. It's fine."

He tapped the steering wheel a bit more. "Comic nerd still bothering you?"

She glanced at him. "His name is Will. And, no, he's not bothering me."

"Ah, he has a name now."

"He had a name before too, El. You were there when he introduced himself."

"You talk to him?"

She shrugged. "Yea. He's my neighbour."

She saw him shoot her another look, as he carefully eyed her.

"He still creeping you out?"

"He never creped me out, El. Some shy, comic book enthusiast who teaches math is not on my list of creepy men."

"I've seen him around when I've picked you up. He's always … lurking."

"He lives in the building, El. He's not lurking."

"Want me to say something to him the next time I see him?"

She shot him a hard look. "No, I do not, Elliot. Leave him alone. I can take care of myself – and my son."


	24. Chapter 24

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced at Will. She'd managed to avoid him for most of the week. It wasn't a purposeful avoidance – she just hadn't seen him around the building (though she had heard him coming and going a couple times). And, she hadn't gone out looking for him either.

She actually thought the few days of not seeing each other was likely best. She needed some time to digest the visit to his family's, his gestures towards her and Noah, their talk on the ferry. He was just so different from the men she interacted with on a daily basis – good men and bad men. And, he really didn't seem to want anything from her. She wasn't sure she really believed that was possible from a man – or really anyone. Everyone has some sort of agenda. She had trouble believing that 'lets just be friends' was his fundamental agenda either.

He was eyeing her from where he was retrieving his mail out of his box too and sorting through it to toss out the giant pile of junk and flyers that seemed to end up in all their boxes daily. So she glanced up at him again from where she was tossing her junk into the recycling bin too – well, handing it to Noah so he could toss it in like he was a pretty bad basketball star. He was having to pick up a lot of it off the floor and try again – two or three or four times.

"You're always staring at me," she commented at him. "Just so you know, that tends to fall into the realm of rude – and may start edging into stalker-type behaviour."

He snorted and looked back to the mail in his hand. "You still think I'm a stalker?"

She shrugged. "Jury's still out."

"Ah," he said and shuffled through his pile one more time. "Well, I suppose stalker is an improvement over rapist or pedophile."

She gave him a short glare. She clearly was never going to live down making those vague suggestions about his odd, overly-friendly behaviour.

It looked like he was about done with his mail, but he placed his shoulder against the mail slots, clearly waiting for her so they could catch the elevator together. So she finished off quickly and grabbed Noah's hand, bending to pick up what he still had scattered on the floor.

Will pushed the button as the reached the elevator and did his usual bouncing on the balls of his feet while they waited. He always seemed to have this nervous energy around him. She wondered if that was reserved for when he was just around women – or if that was just him. She thought she'd get motion-sick having to watch him lecture one of his classes if he was bouncing around and rocking like that all the time.

"So did you get into a fight or something?" he asked as they got into the elevator, holding his back against the door for her so she could huddle Noah passed him.

She raised her eyebrow at him, confused.

He grabbed his chin. "It looks like someone hit you," he said. "New bruise."

"Oh," she said and grabbed at her own chin, opening her mouth again to stretch her jaw out a bit. "Yeah, someone didn't like getting arrested today."

He looked surprised at that. "And they hit you?"

She gave him a little smile.

He made a face. "Doesn't sound like a bright person. I'm sure assaulting a police office really helped their case."

She allowed a small laugh at that. "Mmm, I've dealt with a lot of people who aren't that bright. And, I've been hit a lot harder."

"Well, aren't you just the bad …" he stopped mid-sentence and glanced down at Noah "… ahh … antelope."

She snorted at him and shook her head, as she got off the elevator. "Yea, that's me. A bad antelope."

He gave a smile and followed after her – but didn't do his usual stop to lean against her door jam when the got off the elevator at the same time, watching her and Noah get into their apartment safely. He just kept walking.

"Have a good night," he said. "Make sure to ice that."

She glanced at him. He always had stopped before. Even when she'd been giving him body language that he should get lost. Today he hadn't – and he'd hardly talked to Noah. It wasn't his usual behaviour – or at least in her observation.

She wondered if he was still embarrassed about the weekend too. Maybe she'd put too much worry into what the hell this was – when he'd already decided it wasn't anything and he was starting to respect her previous wishes, just as she'd been starting to warm up to the idea of, he might be worth giving a chance, at least as a friend … or another adult human-being to occasionally get to talk to who wasn't related to work.

"Ah, Will," she called at him and he glanced over his shoulder, seemingly surprised she was still talking to him. He turned around and took the few steps back, now taking his usual stance of propping himself against the wall just outside her door.

"Yea?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and worked at former her thoughts. Talk to him. That's what Huang had said. Lay down the rules for his interaction with Noah. She'd already jumped too far into murky waters. Especially now with accepting the tickets to the show and meeting his family. Spending time with him that wasn't just on the elevator. Rules might be a good thing at this point. Though, maybe it didn't make sense to do it anymore if he was now just at the 'have a good night' stage.

"Umm, I have kind of wanting to be able to talk to you about something," she said cautiously and desperately trying to make it sound casual so he didn't get the wrong impression. "I was hoping that maybe you could stop by tonight – say around nine, after I've got Noah to bed?"

He examined her face for a moment. She couldn't get a complete read on him – but she didn't see enthusiasm about the idea. He looked at the floor and shook his head.

"Look, if this is about the weekend," he said, not making eye contact, "I'm still really sorry about that. But, you know, I won't invite you over to Christmas dinner or anything. So you don't have to go through it again. I'm sorry it happened."

She shook her head. "It's not about that, Will. Don't worry about that."

He glanced at her. "Ah, well, if you're trying to seduce me, that's not going to work either," he said with a bit of a tease in his voice but he had this kind of sly grin, that gave her a very real glance into the reality that underneath the shyness, the introversion, and the sarcasm – there was definitely still a man in there.

She shook her head at him again. "You aren't my type."

He laughed. "Mmm, you know, I might be curious to know what exactly is the type for a woman who works in the job you do."

She knew he meant it just as a joke and a passing comment – but she didn't much like it. She was about to snap back something at him and tell him to forget about the conversation request, but he was ruffling Noah's hair and smiling at him.

"I bet Mommy's type is handsome because look at you, bud, right? You're probably already quite the lady killer at daycare."

Noah just blew-out a raspberry at that and grabbed at Will's hand. "'Ill don't mess."

He looked back up at her. "He looks a lot like you, though," he commented.

She rubbed at her eyebrow, her rising anger fading a little. "I guess that's supposed to happen. Fifty per cent of my genes are apparently in there."

He gave her a small smile and glanced at Noah again, who was still pulling at his fingers.

"Listen," he said, meeting her eyes. "I can't really do that tonight."

She snorted. "Big plans? More boardgames?"

He looked at her a little embarrassed and shook his head. "Ah, no," he sort of stuttered and then rested his head against the wall and examined her for a moment before shrugging. "I sort of have a date."

"You sort of have a date?" she repeated back to him, almost in shock.

He just shrugged again.

She suddenly felt incredibly stupid. She felt self-absorbed. She'd been so convinced that he was flirting with her – she hadn't even considered that he was dating. She'd bought into him saying he wasn't looking for a relationship. She'd bought even more into the damaged widower act. Having Noah, work, the assault – being out of the game so long now – she'd let herself be blind to the other possibilities. She'd just let herself get caught up in the fact that a man, who wasn't a perp, a cop or a lawyer, actually seemed to be looking at her and talking to her. She'd let it go to her head. It was stupid.

Flirting didn't even mean anything. She knew that. He could still be a flirt and be dating other women – and flirting with just as many, if not more. And why wouldn't he be dating, really? He was a single man still in his 30s. He was attractive. He was intelligent. He was well-spoken, when he got going. He was funny, when he wanted to be. He had a meaningful job. Hell, he probably brought home a decent pay cheque, depending on where he was in his tenure. All-in-all, he was a pretty eligible bachelor.

But she'd fallen for the widower, shy, geeky, let's just be friends act. It likely wasn't an act, anymore. At least not the let's be friends part. That's clearly all he was looking for.

But fuck if she was going to have a conversation about his interactions with Noah now. Noah becoming attached to a single man was one thing. Noah becoming attached to a man who was actively dating and could have strange women floating in and out of Noah's reality – that just wasn't going to happen. He could talk to them on the elevator – they could be neighbours – but she wasn't going to let her son get confused and hurt. Noah didn't need a player as a role model.

"I thought you weren't looking for a relationship," she said plainly. She knew it was a stupid comment. He likely meant he wasn't looking for a relationship with her. Or, he was an adult, he had needs. She'd gone out on lots of dates without looking for a relationship.

He shrugged at her again. "I'm not, just you know …" was all he provided.

She shook her head and jiggled open the door, extracting Noah's hand from Will's fingers and pushing him inside. "Ah, OK, well have fun."

"Olivia," Will sighed at her. "It's just … a set-up. It's not a big deal. I'm just not sure when I'll be back in." He stopped realizing that might not have been the best way to put it – like he was suggesting he was heading out on a booty call.

He sighed again. "I don't have any plans tomorrow night," he offered.

She shook her head. "It's OK. It wasn't anything important."

He rapped his head against the wall and gave her almost a puppy dog look. "Com'on, don't do this. I thought we were just really … you know … starting to be friendly … to connect."

She nodded and started to close the door. "Yep, Will. I get it. Good, neighbourly friends. You're a nice guy. A good neighbour. I'm good with that."

"Olivia …" he tried again but she closed the door the rest of the way. Even from standing inside the closed door, she could hear him say, "Fuck."


	25. Chapter 25

**Title: A Complicated State of Happiness**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: With her son now two, Olivia moves into a new condo where she has a friendly but geeky neighbour. She continues to navigate being a single mom and her work - while now also trying to find her place in a new neighbourhood and figure out what she thinks of and wants from this Will guy.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Her relationship with Elliot is that of partner and protective older brother and colleague. It won't devolve from that - they aren't ever going to get together in this series. If you're an E/O shipper, you likely won't enjoy these stories. The timeline is a little loose and since most of the stories ultimately takes place outside of the work environment, there aren't too many references to cases from the show. But this series would generally be starting in about Season 10/11 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd thought better about answering the door. She knew it was Will. The only other person it would've been would be Elliot – and him coming up to the door in the evening was rare. If he did, he'd be announcing who it was while he pounded on the door too.

She didn't exactly want to talk to Will at that point but she was trying not to be petty about it. It wasn't entirely his fault that she had let herself assess his offer of friendship a little too closely as something it wasn't.

She knew she'd visibly displayed too much of her upset already. It was embarrassing.

She wasn't even really upset at him. She was upset at herself. She'd let a lot of her thoughts outside of work process the whole situation with her neighbour. It clearly had been a waste of time and energy.

His eyes seemed almost surprised when she actually opened the door. He had his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a steel blue suit that looked like he actually had fitted for him, and he was examining the floor. He looked up as the door opened though and gave her a thin smile.

"So, I'm 30 minutes late, but you still want to have that talk?" he asked.

She examined him. It was the first time she'd seen him actually dressed like someone his age – or someone with a level of professionalism. He clearly hadn't put a tonne of thought into the co-ordination possibilities of the outfit. The suit was just paired with a white shirt and a solid tie that was such a dark blue it was almost a black. But he still looked good. He looked like what someone his age going out for dinner or drinks in the city should likely look like – smart and put together. He'd even tamed his mess of hair and it looked like he did know what hair product was – though maybe not how to use it properly. Still, his whole look just kind of proved again to her that he was likely pretty dateable in the eyes of a lot of women and she had been a little foolish to buy into the grieving widower lines.

"Don't you clean up nice," she commented at him at him with a slight edge to her voice.

He snorted at her and rocked up onto the balls of his feet again. The movement caused her to glance down at his nervous movements and he apparently even owned dress shoes. A pair of near-new looking black wingtips adorned his feet.

"Yeah? I usually reserve this shit for university functions. I feel like a douche."

"And your date didn't like it either? Aren't you home a little early?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I think she thought I was a bit of a douche too. Don't think I was her type."

"You talk to her about Star Wars and board games?"

"How'd you guess?"

"They seem to be among your favourite topics of conversation."

Will shrugged. "I like what I like."

"You might want to expand your small-talk menagerie if you don't want to scare the ladies away."

Will just shrugged again. "Whatever. I don't really care if I scare them away. It's just dates. I'm not looking for a relationship."

"Dropping the Star Wars and board game talk might increase your chances of getting into bed too – and not being home at 9:30 on a date night," she added.

He examined her at that. "I didn't say I was looking for that either."

A silence hung between them for several moments. They were both near glaring at each other – her with her arms crossed against her chest and him with his hands still rammed into his pockets.

"So do I get to come in?" he finally asked.

She shook her head. "No. It wasn't important."

Will let out a sigh and looked at the ground briefly before meeting her eyes again.

"I'm not looking for a relationship, Olivia. I didn't lie to you – and it wasn't about you. I'm just not looking for a relationship."

"I don't need an explanation," she told him.

He shook his head and let out another breath. "Well it kind of seems like you do."

He eyed her and shrugged. "I started dating again a while ago. It makes people around me – my family – feel more comfortable with where I'm at with things at this point in my life and with the time's that passed. It's just dates."

She nodded. "Good. Your family is likely right. It's important to get out there. Move on."

He sighed hard and examined the ground. "You know – I'd ask you out on a date, if you want. But I tend to get bored of most of the women I'm forced to go out with before the main course even gets brought out. I kind of respect you enough that I didn't want to wreck the friendship by pretending to be something I'm not."

"So you just pretend to be something you're not with most women?"

He sighed. "That's not what I meant either. Look … I'm just not really good at being … rude. If someone asks me to a function or someone sets me up … I'm just not very good at saying no. People like to set you up on crappy blind dates when you're a widower, Olivia. Because I should be moving on and being happy and all that. Apparently I can't do that as a single person."

She offered no comment.

He shook his head and examined the floor. "I like spending time with you and Noah," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to … say or do something that made you uncomfortable with that. You'd said you weren't looking for a relationship right now in your life either. I didn't think … you'd … have much of a reaction to me dating."

"I don't care you're dating," she said flatly. "I care that … I just don't get you, Will. I haven't figured out how your mind works. Your definition of normal is just … outside of my realm – and I deal with a lot of people who have pretty screwed up definitions of normal."

He glanced at her. His eyes looked sad, which made her feel badly.

"I just deal with too much fucked-up-ness, Will. Too much insanity. I need stability in my life. My son needs stability in his life. Even just in friendships. That's just … not you."

She thought he looked like he was going to cry. He swallowed hard and give a little nod.

"OK," he said quietly. "Yeah, I get it." He shrugged. "I guess I'll see you around then. Have a good night."

She closed the door as he walked away, and slowly came to the realization she'd done exactly what he'd said women did to him – treated him as beyond damaged. But he was damaged. He was clearly damaged from the death of his wife. He was clearly damaged from his interactions with his family and likely his childhood. And, he was just clearly confused about where he was in his life and grieving process and how he should be interacting with that all. Not to mention how he should be interacting with the people around him. It was just too much. She didn't want to have to interact with any of that. She didn't want her son to have to interact with that. She had enough bullshit to deal with in her daily life. She didn't need his.


End file.
